Major changes to the design and capacity of the proposed Brighton landfill south of Dunedin show the original plans were seriously flawed, opponents of the project say.
The Dunedin City Council also again failed to show it had considered any alternatives to the Smooth Hill site it chose nearly 30 years ago, they said.
"I believe the city council has conceded that they are not doing the right thing, I appreciate that, but we want more," Mr Weatherall said.
"We’re still adamant that is not the right site for the next landfill for Dunedin."
He said the council had been pushed into making a quick decision for a variety of reasons.
Taking waste from outside the district had filled the Green Island landfill faster than it should have, he said.
"But the reality is, we still have got some time to make this right," Mr Weatherall said.
The city council lodged resource consent applications with the Otago Regional Council at the end of August last year.
But the application was put on hold as the regional council called for more information.
This week the city council released that information and proposed reducing the size of the planned landfill from 44.5ha to 18.6ha.
Its net waste capacity would also be reduced from 6.2million cum to under 3million cu m.
Its new footprint would dramatically reduce the amount of wetlands it would destroy.
The new documents revealed the regional council asked the city to address what other matters would be considered if the site selection was done in 2020 rather than the 1990s and
whether the resulting recommendations would have been any different from the site assessment that favoured Smooth Hill.
However, the city council said there was no statutory requirement to reassess the site.
Otokia Creek and Marsh Habitat Trust chairman Simon Laing said the city council had a "moral and ecological imperative" to revisit its 1992 assessment, regardless.
The proposed landfill could affect Otokia Creek.
The city now recognised the creek area as a traditional food-gathering area by local Maori.
But Mr Laing said he remained concerned that Brighton Beach, where the creek turns into an estuary, had since become one of Dunedin’s most popular swimming spots for families.
And that had not been adequately addressed.
The city council had reduced the proposed footprint to protect one part of the wetland system after the community started "making noise" about the project, Mr Laing said.
"Soon they are going to have realise that they need to consider other options, surely," he said.
Regional council consents manager Joanna Gilroy said the council was reviewing the new information to determine if anything further was required from the city council.
It would take some time to determine what kind of notification was appropriate, she said.
