The Dunedin City Council (DCC) has filed its legal submissions for the hearing for the "continued operation, closure and aftercare" of the city’s tip.
The DCC plans to extend the landfill’s working life to allow for a new site south of Brighton, at Smooth Hill, to be developed, while composting and some recycling activities are to remain on the Green Island site.
"Council has invested significantly in the ‘Waste Futures’ programme and has allocated $18.468 million in capital expenditure in the nine-year plan for 2025-34 for the continued operation, closure and aftercare of the Green Island landfill," the legal submission said.
It said there was general agreement between DCC and Otago Regional Council (ORC) experts, but "key issues" remained on several topics including potential odour, the protective barrier used to cap the landfill, water quality and wider catchment issues, the bond required, and the transition from Green Island’s use to the operation of the planned Smooth Hill landfill.
The DCC lawyers said Smooth Hill would likely be ready to accept waste in 2029, but there would be a "bedding in" period between when it first accepted waste and when it was fully operational.
To that end a condition was proposed such that waste must stop being accepted at Green Island no later than 12 months after Smooth Hill began accepting waste.
The DCC argued the bond of $1m in place at present was sufficient, and a "risk-based bond" similar to that required for Smooth Hill was not warranted.
The Green Island bond at present required the DCC or any future owner to pay "all costs, damages and expenses, claims, actions and proceedings arising out of any default" and that amount was not capped, the legal submission said.
An extension of the "collection trench" that collected liquid contaminants was planned, as was a new "monitoring well cluster" of three wells next to the stormwater treatment ponds to the south of the landfill, it said.
On the matter of odour, the DCC lawyers said a condition on the operation of Green Island landfill should be that there must be "no noxious, dangerous, offensive or objectionable odour to the extent that it causes an adverse effect at or beyond the boundary of the site".
And though the ORC and DCC experts differed on the appropriate grade for the final landfill cap, because the Green Island landfill was decades-old and much of the waste it contained had already consolidated — and because from now organic waste was being removed from the waste stream — the gradient put forward by the ORC was not necessary, they said.
Further, the DCC would "collaborate with and support the work of" the ORC, Te Rūnaka o Ōtākou and others to support wider catchment monitoring, management and remediation activities.
"The aftercare of the landfill, including ongoing monitoring of effects on air and water quality, will ensure that the landfill site and surrounding area become an asset for recreational and other community pursuits," they said.
The consent hearing for Green Island landfill is set down for tomorrow and Wednesday at the auditorium at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum.
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