Defence Force to help with West Coast rubbish cleanup

Tuesday, 2 July 2019

NZDF has drafted in 70 personnel to help in the rubbish cleanup. They also helped rebuild the 170-metre Waiho River Bridge, which was washed out during severe flooding in March.

The New Zealand Army will help remove thousands of tonnes of rubbish scattered along the West Coast.

The Defence Force (NZDF) is sending up to 70 personnel, vehicles and aircraft to help the Department of Conservation remove the rubbish, scattered across about 75 kilometres of coastline and riverbed after torrential rainfall and flooding in late March exposed a disused landfill at Fox River.

About 75km of coastline was strewn with rubbish after flooding eroded an old landfill beside Fox River on the West Coast.

Westland District Council was forced to abandon the clean-up at the end of May after spending nearly $600,000.

The Minister of Conservation and Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage announced in June DOC would take over because the council had told her it had no resources or capacity to do more work.

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Volunteers had been working to clean up the rubbish but reported it would take more than a year to complete.

Rear Admiral Jim Gilmour, the Commander Joint Forces New Zealand, said the cleanup of the rubbish, which was scattered across 1620 hectares of coastline and river bed, would take about four weeks.

'We have been planning with DOC over the past three weeks and are finalising arrangements for our support, which at this stage will happen over a four-week period from late July to late August,' he said.

The NZDF would also provide helicopter support, as well as military vehicles, to transport personnel and volunteers from Fox Glacier to various locations and to collect bags of rubbish.

DOC's South Westland operations manager Wayne Costello said about 5500 tonnes of rubbish from the closed landfill contaminated the Fox River.

The rubbish, most of which was plastic, was entangled with washed-up logs or buried under rocks and silt along Fox River, he said.

'People power is what it will take to remove the rubbish from the riverbed,' he said.

The contaminated area is within a Unesco World Heritage area, National Park and marine reserve.

DOC is seeking to recruit a large number of volunteers, who will receive accommodation and meals to assist. People can sign up to help a at doc.govt.nz/operation-tidy-fox-volunteer

Following the flood in March, which also washed out Waiho River Bridge, the NZDF sent 16 New Zealand Army engineers to work with the New Zealand Transport Agency and engineering and construction companies Downer and Fulton Hogan to rebuild the 170-metre bridge.