Mayor Tania Gibson said the council would not give up the fight against what it saw as a future threat to its $20 million water supply from the private landfill.
TRP Ltd has applied to the regional council for consent to discharge contaminated water — a mix of stormwater and landfill leachate — from a retention pond to land and groundwater outside the dump site.
The application is being processed on a limited notification basis, and only the Grey District Council, Te Runanga o Ngati Waewae and two neighbours of the landfill are considered affected parties with the right to formally oppose or support it.
One of those neighbours is West Coast Regional Council chairman Peter Haddock.
"Tonkin + Taylor have given us an estimate for the work the council will have to do for our submission, and we’ll need to present at the hearing, then our lawyers are involved — that’s why we’ve said $60,000 and it could be more."
That was a cost to the community that ratepayers could ill-afford, Mrs Gibson said.
"No-one’s coming to save us but ourselves. But it’s just diabolical to have to fight this when we don’t want them discharging to water and land above our water treatment plant."
She met Taylorville residents on Tuesday to tell them what the council was planning to do, the mayor said.
"They are pretty devastated and upset. But we have to fight this with facts, not emotion. We are going to go in with as much specific technical information as we can and we will need to engage someone with that knowledge."
The council’s independent water testing had shown contaminant levels rising in the road drains and groundwater near the landfill, Mrs Gibson said.
TRP Ltd is about to apply for a more comprehensive resource consent for a class 2 landfill, which would allow it to expand and take a wider range of waste materials, and it has asked for that application to be publicly notified.
It had applied for the current consent as an interim measure last September but the council was only now getting around to processing it, a company spokesperson said.
For residents living near the dump, the prospect of fighting the major class 2 consent is daunting.
Adrian and Christine Van Dorp, who can see the operation from a bank on their lifestyle block, are considered affected parties.
"We’ve been sent 300 pages of stuff to wade through to make a submission and I can’t see how we’re going to stop this, but we can at least try to stop them expanding."
It was beyond belief that the dump was ever consented in the first place, the Van Dorps said.
Mr Haddock also owns undeveloped land next to the landfill and is considered an affected party.
"We’re all interested to see what he submits," Mr Van Dorp said.
"There are 28 of us living around here and the damn thing is a blight on the neighbourhood. It’s affected property values and it literally stinks.
"When the wind’s blowing one way we get it — and the smell makes you feel sick. When it blows the other way, our neighbours across the terrace get it."
By Lois Williams
