However, funding may return once plans to shift an estimated 780,000 litres of viscous tar phase material from the Hillside Rd tar well site are confirmed.
During a update report at Tuesday’s council meeting, Cr Sophie Barker asked if the council could expect any funding for the project’s planning work after a remediation agreement with the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) finished without receipt of $200,000, pledged to the council in theory.
The funding, for planning work, depended on the council securing an approved consent for remediation and completion of the detailed remediation design — it was not funding for the work itself, expected to cost between $7.2 million and $8.5m.
Property services group manager Anna Nilsen said funding options would be revisited closer to the time.
"We set out on the piece of work, I guess, with the best of intentions, probably at the beginning not realising that a fully consented piece of work was going to take some time and be a larger sum of money than the $200,000 that we could get from MfE."
The tar, which contains known contaminants such as volatile organic compounds, cyanide and ammonia, will be removed from the well in Hillside Rd, treated and stabilised on site and disposed of at the Smooth Hill landfill in the hills above Brighton.
Operational funding of $1m was included in the council’s 2033-34 property services budget — on-site work is expected to begin by 2035-36.
Speaking to the Otago Daily Times before the meeting, Mrs Nilsen said she was hopeful some form of MfE co-funding would be available when the council started planning remediation in earnest, expected to be around 2032.
The timing of intended remediation would align with the planned opening of the Smooth Hill landfill in 2029-30.
Work to get an approved consent required detailed planning, time and funds, she said.
"So we could do it now, but it would cost us more investment right now, or we can do it later when we’re closer to actually remediating.
"The situation might change between now and then, so we don’t want to get something consented now that then has to be revisited and changed at the time."
Councillors accepted the report.
