A new fund has been set up to fund work on four historic dumps vulnerable to leaking materials, they are among at least 100 known historic dumps nationwide. Clockwise from top left: Tāhunanui Beach, Bluecliffs Beach, Fox River cleanup efforts, rubbish that leaked en masse from a Fox River rubbish dump. Photo: RNZ and supplied
More than $6 million has been pledged to clean up four historic dump sites vulnerable to erosion.
Minister for the Environment Penny Simmonds said a fund of $6.6m would be administered as Contaminated Sites Remediation grants, to be used for cleaning up old landfill sites in Gisborne, Southland, Canterbury and Nelson.
The four sites are all in low-lying coastal areas at risk of eroding during storm surges, high river levels or flooding, which could wash rubbish into waterways - posing a risk to communities and the environment, Simmonds said.
She made the announcement on Saturday at the BlueGreens Forum in Northland, a meeting of the advisory group to the National Party on environmental issues.
"This funding will address the risk of the sites being breached by a natural event, exposing waste material and contaminating the surrounding land and waterways," Simmonds said.
The landfill sites that will receive the funding are at Tokomaru Bay, Bluecliffs in Southland, St Andrew's Beach south of Timaru in Canterbury and Tāhunanui Beach in Nelson.
In February a State of Emergency was declared in Southland after rapid erosion caused by heavy rain and sea swell washed away part of the beachfront at Bluecliffs Beach, west of Invercargill. As well as risks posed to houses there, the erosion exposed an old landfill, and council work to quickly clear it was complicated by the possibility there could be explosives in the ground there too.
Erosion at Bluecliffs Beach in Southland, in February. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton
In August, a wood dump exposed in sand dunes at Nelson's Tāhunanui Beach dating from the 1960s was found to contain heavy metals, including arsenic, that could pose a risk to humans, wildlife and the environment.
Dumped wood and sawdust exposed in sand dunes at Tāhunanui Beach in Nelson has been found to contain toxic heavy metals. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
Fox River pollution leads to new tool
Historic dump sites are monitored by territorial councils, but climate change risks were not measured until recently.
In 2019 during the Fox River disaster, rubbish was strewn for kilometres down the riverbed and coastline after severe flooding eroded part of an old landfill.
Efforts to clean up pollution ripped out of a Fox River dump by flooding in 2019 went on until 2022, and were estimated to have cost $3m. Photo: Kelsey Porter
After months of clean-up work on the pollution by contractors, the Westland District Council pulled back from paying for the "unbudgeted expenditure", saying it could not afford to continue paying for it, and needed to focus its disaster recovery efforts to repairing roads. Volunteers, and defence force personnel went to work to clear the washed out rubbish by hand, but some predicted it would take years.
There were 100 known historic dump sites throughout the country, Forest and Bird regional manager Nicky Snoyink said at the time. And the disaster had highlighted the lack of resources and funds small communities had when it came to managing a disaster of that scale, she said.
"It really raises a much bigger question about our abilities to respond to these disasters adequately .. This is not an isolated event. This is an event we are facing around the country and especially in the face of climate change."
Volunteers picking up rubbish along the Fox River after a historic rubbish dump was torn open during a storm and flooding, strewing its contents for kilometres. Photo: RNZ / Katie Todd
Following a community outcry over the incident, funding was set aside to create a tool to assess climate change risks at landfills and contaminated sites. The project was being worked on by the Ministry for the Environment and local councils.
Simmonds said that tool was now being tried out.
"The ministry is now working with regional councils to refine the tool and use it to evaluate landfills that have not yet been assessed," she said.
"These assessments will help councils make decisions on how to manage the risks associated with vulnerable landfills and contaminated sites, such as reducing the level of contamination, better containing the sites, or removing the contents of landfills."
The Fox River cleanup was finally declared complete in 2022, at a cost of $3m.