New Plymouth District Council is at a loss to explain the timing of its flip-flop over its support for a controversial composting plant which has accumulated a 20,000 tonne stockpile of contaminated waste at its Uruti site.
Photo: Screenshot
In an odd move, the council is looking to formally withdraw its submission in favour of renewing Remediation NZ's consents - more than two weeks after they were considered at a public hearing.
Remediation NZ is seeking to renew consents to discharge contaminants to air, land and water.
The company has a long history of non-compliance with consents and Ngāti Mutunga, neighbours, environmentalists and oil and gas industry watchdog groups oppose its consents being renewed.
New Plymouth Council wanted to process its food waste collection at Uruti and it along with companies such as Fonterra, Tegel, Waste Management and EnviroWaste, submitted in favour, arguing Remediation NZ provided a sustainable option for waste disposal not available anywhere else in Taranaki.
But now Mayor Neil Holdom said the council had had a change of heart.
"We've become aware of a raft of non-compliances. We've had complaints from members of the public, tangata whenua and there's significant material issues with the site.
"And I think it's clear council doesn't wish to be seen to support a facility which is causing potentially significant adverse environmental impacts."
Holdom said a lot had changed since the council made the favourable submission.
"The hearings relate to an historic ... we've obviously made a submission in favour of it two years ago and subsequently we've become aware of these wide ranging concerns from the community there."
But he was less clear on why the submission hadn't been withdrawn ahead of the hearing.
"Well, look I'd have to think about that."
New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdom says the council is looking at building its own food waste composting facility Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin
Holdom said a team was now looking at the council building its own food waste composting facility rather than trucking it to Hampton Downs as it is doing now.
"Perhaps there was a disconnect with that team and maybe they haven't talked to the team that made the submission in support [of the consents renewals] so maybe they haven't connected everything up."
North Taranaki Awa Protection Society chairman John McLean had been fighting against the consents being renewed.
"The running of Remediation NZ clearly had rung sufficient alarm bells for council to withdraw their support and that's a real relief."
He had some sympathy for the council's initial position.
"When they were aware that there was a local site that should have been able to take that sort of material then of course they would want to use it, but I don't know how thoroughly they had investigated the health of the site or how much crossover there was between the regional council and the district council."
Dawn Bendall lives near the Uruti site.
She was also rapt the council had withdrawn its support.
"They thought it was going to be more of an organic operation, but then of course with the drilling mud and everything else that's been taken up there like a lot of detergents and dirty water and hydrocarbons and all of that type of thing, I think they have very quickly realised that environmentally it wasn't the best track to be going down."
Ngati Mutunga environmental officer Marlene Benson said the iwi was puzzled the council had taken so long to realise its mistake.
"It would have been better if this had happened before the hearing and not in response to all the negative publicity that occurred around the hearing, and it would have been better still if the New Plymouth District Council had talked to Ngati Mutunga and the wider community before they had submitted in favour of the site."
Benson said the iwi supported the council setting aside money to build its own composting plant.
Remediation NZ said it was surprised by the move but was unable to comment further.
The final recommendation from Taranaki Regional Council staff, following the hearing, was that consents be granted until 2028 under a slew of conditions - one of which was the removal of the oil and gas waste stockpile.
The three resource consent commissioners are due to make their decision on the consents renewals by the end of the month.