Marlborough District Council 'on top of' historic landfill sites

Sunday, 14 July 2019

Historic landfills in Marlborough are well-monitored and not at risk of sparking a major disaster like the one at Fox River, The Marlborough District Council says.

The council said the catastrophe at Fox River Glacier had not sparked it to investigate its own old landfill sites despite closed landfills at Havelock, Rai Valley and Kaituna all being in close proximity to waterways.

The old Blenheim landfill is also near the Taylor River, the Seddon landfill is near the Awatere River and the old Picton landfill has a small stream that passes it.

Council operations and maintenance engineer Stephen Rooney said many were not at risk of being eroded due to low water flows, or in times of rainfall 'non-turbulent flow' near the edge of the landfill.

The Havelock Transfer station sits on a bank above the Kaituna River.

* 'Significant' work still to do on Fox River cleanup

* 81-year-old volunteers for Fox River rubbish clean-up**

The Fox Glacier Township Landfill in South Westland was torn open when the Fox River breached its banks during a huge rainstorm in late March, which forced the swollen river through about 40 metres of bush, causing the land under the old site to erode.

Red marks where a historical closed landfill sits in proximity with the Kaituna River in Havelock.

Rooney said Marlborough had resource consents in place for all its closed landfills sites, which required them to monitor the sites.

Generally, historic landfills had visual inspections and ground water sampling on a three-monthly basis. Sites also had an annual walk over inspection, Rooney said.

'I think for all of our closed landfills, we are on top of those sorts of situations.'

Landfills at Rai Valley, Havelock, Picton, Wairau Valley and Seddon had transfer stations constructed on top of them which had staff on site every week, he said.

Volunteers continue to clean up rubbish from an old landfill in the Fox River despite no Government funding.

More than a decade ago, problems started to occur with the Rai Valley landfill,.

'The river had started to erode the bank so we very quickly got in there and undertook some recovering and additional river bank protection works to prevent that getting any worse,' Rooney said.

One of the key comparisons between Fox River and closed landfills in Marlborough was the proximity to the river, he said.

A closed landfill on Northbank Rd, west of Blenheim, is in close proximity to the Wairau River.

During flood times, the Fox River flows were extremely high and carried large volumes of boulder and gravels, he said.

It also appeared to be 'highly erodible'.

The river flows past Marlborough landfills were 'somewhat less erosive'.

The Havelock Transfer station is constructed on top of an landfill site which was closed in 1996.

'You're probably not going to see as catastrophic a problem here as you did in the environment on the West Coast.'

Rooney said there was still the potential for issues to occur with Marlborough landfills, but didn't think it would be anything 'catastrophic'.

'We're visiting the site regularly, I'd anticipate you would see earlier warning signs of there being an issue.'

Blenheim couple Matt Wright and Holly Spence spent the weekend volunteering at the Fox River Glacier and are keen to see Marlburians do the same.

Meanwhile, a Blenheim couple who visited the Fox River Glacier on the weekend to volunteer in the project clean up, want to encourage other Marlburians to do the same.

Volunteers have cleared 36 rugby fields worth of rubbish exposed by a storm on the West Coast, but there is still a lot of work left to do.

Blenheim woman Holly Spence says she was shocked by the amount of plastic in Fox River.

Holly Spence, who is studying environmental management, said the amount of plastic at the site was 'shocking'.

She estimated the river was 10 times the width of the Wairau River and filled with logs, debris, plastic, silt and all kinds of rubbish.

'We even found an old car,' she said.

Spence had to call the team leader over when she came across syringes and old medical equipment.

In two days, Spence, partner Matt Wright and a team of about 100, dug up 14 tonnes of rubbish.

'You're just picking up rubbish in the middle of this beautiful place,' she said.

There was a positive vibe among volunteers, she said.

'Just being part of the team, it's a really good group experience.'

To register online, or for more information contact operationtidyfox@doc.govt.nz