An aerial view looking southeast across the Taylorville Resource Park site. Photo: Supplied / Greymouth Star
Fears a future slip from the Taylorville Resource Park site could wipe out the Greymouth town water treatment plant site remain a worry for the Grey District Council.
In September, independent consultant Enviser found the West Coast Regional Council had "at face value" ticked off the Taylorville site.
It also found the council's consenting process was "highly reliant" on check box ticks filled in by the applicant, and compromised its Resource Management Act (RMA) role.
The council is to be briefed on further work by Enviser for the West Coast Regional Council on Friday.
Greymouth mayor Tania Gibson said her council is still very worried about the potential threat to the Greymouth water supply and treatment plan, given its proximity to the private landfill.
"The smell is not there at the moment. It will be good to have that update," she said.
However, while the immediate neighbours' worry had quietened, the district council remained committed to advocating for the public interest, she said.
Gibson pointed to the water leaching and odour emissions.
"It hasn't gone away … our council and everyone is concerned," she said.
The Grey District Council is worried about the potential of the Taylorville Resource Park site slipping through the area in a future seismic event. Photo: Supplied / Greymouth Star
The West Coast Regional Council slapped an abatement notice on the landfill for a foul odour in July.
Grey District group manager operations Aaron Haymes said a future earthquake or similar disaster causing the landfill site to collapse down onto Taylorville Road and onto the Greymouth town water treatment site remained a principal concern.
Logistically, having a demonstrably secure public water supply for Greymouth in those circumstances was a big priority for the district council, he said.
In order for that to happen council needed to be confident everything had been done by the regional council to ensure the potential geological threat was not minimised when it granted consent.
Haymes said an update on "more detailed work" by Enviser for the regional council was timely.
"Long-term geotechnical stability is a concern to us and also what happens in a seismic event," he said.
"I'm waiting with bated breath. We'll see what we hear then take it from there."
However, the district council had not commissioned its own geotechnical investigation around the stability issues adjoining the Taylorville site.
In its view, the regional council should have ensured an appropriate geotechnical assessment was provided by the applicant before resource consent was granted, Haymes said.
"We don't think the amount of geotechnical work before it issued the consents went far enough."
However, council was concerned any geotechnical investigation should be more global than simply being inside the landfill area.
Haymes said their initial concerns about the geotechnical basis had been borne out in leachate coming from the dump site.
"Initially they assumed that there wasn't going to be leachate leaving the site, but that hasn't been the case."
Meanwhile, West Coast regional councillor Peter Ewen said the site raises a bigger concern around the future security of old landfills and contaminated sites in the region.
"My biggest concern is these legacy issues - the ratepayers being left with them. It doesn't matter which site.
"The consent holder can walk away - the liability falls on the ratepayer," Ewen said.
He described the Taylorville site as "a failure" in the Resource Management Act process and it could fall back onto the ratepayer.
"Responsibility is never divorced from those who made the decision, but for a consent holder once they're finished, they can walk away."
Ewen said instability at the Taylorville site edge was known and should have been accounted for.
The consent process "was sloppy" and the original dump scope had been allowed to be broadened.
"The initial scope of the consent wasn't that it could take anything. The process was sloppy … we've all learned from it."
The site probably "wouldn't have been a problem" if it had been set further away from the road, Ewen said.
Taylorville Resource Park Ltd has been approached for comment.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air