Greymouth's mayor wants a controversial private landfill site to close after the site was hit with an abatement notice over water contamination.
The Grey District Council is calling for the Taylorville Resource Park consents to be revoked immediately in the wake of an Environmental Protection Authority abatement on the site.
Greymouth Mayor Tania Gibson said fears about the site have yet to be allayed.
"We remain very concerned about the risks posed by the presence of the landfill to our communities and our critical infrastructure," Gibson said.
"We welcome the EPA findings and strongly call on the regional council to revoke all consents and begin remediation work immediately."
The water leaching abatement validated her council's belief the landfill should never have been approved, Gibson said.
Grey has been unhappy for the past three years over not being considered an affected party to the non-notified resource consents for the site granted by the West Coast Regional Council.
The landfill is about 30m away from the district council's Greymouth Water Treatment Plant.
The water bores for the water supply are about 300m away from the landfill in the Grey Riverbed.
Gibson said the EPA findings "don't go far enough".
"The Taylorville landfill should never have been approved. We have never had any assurance about the safety of the operation or how grave risks to our environment are being mitigated," she said.
The EPA has been approached for further comment by LDR.
However, Gibson said the EPA finding this week was consistent with her council's concerns, "voiced time and again".
"There are unanswered questions around the impact of the landfill on the long-term security of the district's water supply, the risk to the local environment, the Grey River, and Greymouth as a whole," she said.
West Coast Regional Council chief executive Darryl Lew was unavailable but chairman Peter Haddock said the district council call to shut down the landfill immediately was probably not realistic.
"There's a due process to follow. We can't just 'close it down'. From my understanding, there is an abatement notice that has three months to run," Haddock said.
However, he acknowledged the landfill mess as one the regional council needed to clear up.
"My comment is it's just another one of those legacy items the council had to pick up."
At the same time, the landfill operator had filed new consent applications for the site, "and they will have to follow due process," Haddock said.
"It may be that they are publicly notified. It's not quite as easy as the Grey District Council are saying.
"The [operator] has a consent in place at the moment but any new consents will have to go through a new process."
He said he personally believed the speedy capping of the open landfill cell closest to Taylorville Road would help mitigate the water leakage issue.
Haddock happens to owns a semi-industrial site just west of the landfill. He said he had not been approached by the EPA in the course of its recent investigation.
Gibson said the risk of leakage from landfill cell containment structures set in gravels "with high water movement present" presented grave risks.
"We've not had any reassurance around how the site will stand up to prolonged heavy rainfall or natural events, such as earthquakes," she said.
"There are many unanswered questions around the impact of the landfill, not only on the long-term security of the district's water supply but also on the impact the leachate will have on the local environment, the Grey River and Greymouth as a whole," Gibson said.
"Council has not had any reassurance around how the site will stand up to prolonged heavy rainfall and natural events, such as earthquakes," she said.
Grey council staff have been regularly monitoring the water supply to ensure residents are protected from any potential contamination.
"We are engaging with the Regional Council and will be increasing the monitoring of ground water between the landfill and water supply intakes."
An assessment of environmental effects prepared for Taylorville Resource Park by EHS Support on March 6 found current water discharge from the site did not have "adverse effects" on human health or the environment that were more than minor.
Landfill proprietors co-operating, EPA says
EPA investigations manager Jackie Adams said the landfill proprietors had been fully co-operative.
Earlier matters raised by the district council with the EPA, alongside the regional council's separate call for an investigation, were not regulated under the RMA and therefore did not fall within the scope of the authority's investigation into the abatement incident.
"The EPA has taken enforcement action based on the findings of our investigation in respect of discharges from the site, and compliance with the existing consents," Adams said.
"Any question as to the status of those consents should be referred to the council as the issuing authority."
He said once TRP completed the abatement notice required work, the EPA would check for compliance. A failure to comply could result in further enforcement action.
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