The Waitaki District Council is still deciding the future of two unofficial landfills that were discovered in 2019.
The landfills were discovered along Beach Rd after being exposed by coastal erosion.
Waitaki District Council recreation manager Erik van der Spek said the council allocated a budget for an investigation into the sites, which had been completed in the past six months.
After drilling test boreholes and taking samples, the council determined the landfills were as big as 2250cum at one site and 4300cum at the other, Mr van der Spek said.
As far as the council could establish, the landfills were used by a local community for private waste disposal between the 1950s and 1970s.
Now that its first stage of investigations had been completed, the council would move into its next stage of determining what to do with the sites.
Mr van der Spek said its options included leaving the landfills where they were, removing them entirely, or moving them partially.
The council would look into what government funding was available while determining the associated risks and costs.
Leaving the landfills where they were posed the risk of further erosion and exposure to the surrounding environment.
In the case of moving the landfill, a new location would need to be decided.
“Getting rid of it once and for all and removing it is desirable but we need to work through the costs and whether we can manage it on-site,’’ Mr van der Spek said.
Since its discovery, the site had not moved but had eroded to one side, he said.
Over the past few months, the council’s roading and parks and recreational teams were completing “protection work’’ along Beach Rd in an effort to prevent erosion from threatening the road in the long term.
As a short-term solution, those teams had placed additional rock protection by the landfills to prevent further erosion.
