A consultant for the Otago Regional Council has recommended the application by the Dunedin City Council be refused.
A "very high risk to aviation safety" and uncertainty about the degree that wetland habitat could be affected were highlighted as issues in a report by Ahika Consulting senior planner Hilary Lennox.
The proposed landfill would be near Dunedin Airport and this has raised concerns about the potential for increased risk of aircraft encountering bird strike.
"I am not satisfied that the risk of bird strike has been adequately assessed, or that the applicant’s proposed consent conditions will ensure that the very high risk to aviation safety will be avoided," Ms Lennox said.
The city council this month amended its application to realign the proposed road carriageway to avoid any direct impact on wetlands by McLaren Gully Rd.
Consent at the city’s Green Island landfill is to expire next year and the council has previously said it hoped to start building a new landfill at Smooth Hill in 2024 or 2025.
Public hearings about whether the proposed landfill should be granted consent are to be held next month.
The project has run into problems before, prompting the council to reduce the scale of the planned facility by more than half.
Dunedin City Council chief executive Sandy Graham said the council would tackle any unresolved issues when it presented further evidence.
"The Otago Regional Council planner’s report acknowledges that, broadly, the potential effects of many aspects of the proposed landfill will be adequately managed," Ms Graham said.
Ms Lennox was satisfied any geotechnical problems at the site could be managed appropriately.
There was uncertainty about possible effects on surface water and groundwater, but they were likely to be minor within the wider Otokia catchment, the consultant concluded.
The shallow groundwater system was still not well understood, which meant there was uncertainty regarding the risk of contamination, Ms Lennox said.
She was satisfied any odour problems could be managed.
She did not have confidence adverse effects on ecological values would be adequately avoided, remedied, mitigated, offset or compensated for.
Dunedin International Airport Ltd, the New Zealand Airline Pilots Association and Otago Aero Club have been among submitters raising aviation safety concerns.
Ms Lennox commented it was important to not allow bird populations to become established, as they were then hard to control.
Proposed methodologies for controlling birds included keeping grassed areas long to block birds’ line of sight and using topsoil as a daily cover to reduce the lure of the site for birds.
Some types of waste could also be screened out before arrival at the landfill.
The city council’s application was publicly notified in September last year.
Some 283 submissions were received.
Two were in support, nine were neutral and the remainder were in opposition.
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Comments
Oh dear. This won't end well for the ratepayers. Ms Graham can't micromanage her way through this fatal flaw.
One suspect's Dcc's 'consideration of alternatives' evaluating the Nash & Ross site is going to bite the DCC management driving this too.
It is morally wrong for Council to be declaring a climate crisis yet promoting the trucking of Dunedin' s waste 30km each way. No-one likes a hypocrite Crs Hawkins, Benson-pope, Walker & Geary.
Who did they buy the land off and for what price?
I was a member on the Brighton Community Council back in the 1980s, I think it was around 1986-87 a guy with the surname Fulton, who was a Director of Fulton and Hogan Ltd and he had sold it to the DCC. This sale matter was discussed at our monthly meeting and a Don Lawson was in the Chair, or thinking back it may had been Colin Weatherall being the first year he was on the Brighton Community Council. We as members and residents of Brighton-Ocean View -Westwood said we opposed that sale, as we all could see that this very large planned waste tip, could intern leakage of resins into the Brighton Creek, and onto the Brighton beach sand and water area. We as the Brighton Community Council were never told the price paid to the seller of that land area.