Speaking at a resource consent hearing today, Christchurch barrister Andrew Schulte made opening submissions for Taylorville Resource Park Ltd (TRP).
The company’s application to discharge contaminated water from its landfill is opposed by neighbours of the dump and the Grey District Council, whose waterworks plant is directly below it on the banks of the Grey River.
The application is being hear by independent commissioners Tony Cussins and David Caldwell.
Mr Schulte said it would not resolve all the issues over the landfill, which TRP believed had become politicised in the dealings between the Grey District Council and West Coast Regional Council.
“This was on the basis that original landfill operation had not indicated that contamination of stormwater from the waste was considered an issue.
“In hindsight, and in the nature of the waste stream that was consented originally and subsequently by way of variations to the consent, this was an oversight,” Mr Schulte told the commissioners.
The consent now being applied for would sort a matter of urgency that arose in 2024, when the company could not release any water from its retention ponds [after heavy rain] because of detectable levels of contamination in the water.
TRP said the levels were not significant.
“The concern was that they (the ponds) might overtop in heavy rain, which is not unknown on the West Coast, and lead not only to an unintended release of water, but affect integrity of the pond structure.”
TRP was seeking consent on a temporary basis to release water, not to expand the activity.
“It has already been treated to remove some contaminants and reduce levels of others,” Mr Schulte told the hearing.
Testing of the leachate by “suitably qualified” persons had found that potential adverse effects were at most minimal, and would not adversely affect local waterways, their ecology, or the Grey District Council’s public water supply, he said.
“The application for that has been lodged and will be publicly notified, because there has been what TRP considers something of a politicisation of the dealings between the councils,” Mr Schulte said.
Ecologists and geologists acting for both the company and the Grey District Council are set to give evidence at the hearing which is being live-streamed for the public on the West Coast Regional Council’s YouTube channel today and tomorrow.
- By Lois Williams, Local Democracy Reporter
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
