The Otago Regional Council has rejected the Dunedin City Council’s claim it does not need to reassess the location of its proposed landfill above Brighton Beach.
It has now issued a second request for information it says has been lacking since it put the DCC’s consent application on hold last year.
In October, the ORC asked for a reassessment of locations for the new landfill.
With the Green Island landfill consent due to expire in 2023, the city council responded in May, halving the footprint of its original proposal to address environmental concerns about the site.
However, it said it was not legally required to reassess alternative sites.
In the latest exchange, provided to the Otago Daily Times this week, the ORC’s consultant planner Hilary Lennox maintained the council needed to take another look at how it selected the Brighton site.
The point of contention between the two councils was a 1992 report which the DCC used to select the Brighton location.
In her letter to the DCC, Ms Lennox said the report needed to be revisited to demonstrate it was still applicable.
"This question remains unanswered."
Other questions the ORC wanted answered included the amount of waste the city council expected to go into the landfill, and whether the city council thought the landfill would attract more pests to the area.
The ORC had also contracted environmental engineering consultants Tonkin + Taylor to look into the DCC’s application. Its review found more holes in the application.
The Tonkin + Taylor report said the council’s application lacked detail on landfill design.
Ms Lennox asked whether a series of meetings between the councils’ different specialists would help to make the regional council’s requests better understood.
She also asked the city council to name a date by which the further information would be provided, or whether the council would not be providing the information.
Saddle Hill Community Board chairman Scott Weatherall, who has led community opposition to the landfill, said residents had not heard from the DCC about plans for some time.
The ORC’s concern was consistent with the Brighton community’s: that just because the council thought it was the right site 30 years ago did not mean it was the right site now.
He noted Tonkin + Taylor had raised concerns the city council had not explained why a site-specific seismic hazard assessment had not been done.
The number of red flags in the technical report underlined the community’s concerns, he said.
"It appears from the outset this resource consent application has been rushed through and the council just hasn’t had the time to [make] sure they get this one right.
"And that’s all we’ve been asking for all this time — take a moment ... and reassess where is the best site."
A DCC spokesman said it was working through the request and would soon confirm to the ORC when it would respond.
On the DCC’s website, it said it expected the Brighton landfill to start operating in 2026, and it had budgeted $56million to make that happen.
However, the council said it was likely to apply for new consents and was investigating how long landfill operations could continue at Green Island.
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And still not a whisper on exactly how the extremist green lobby at the city council are proposing to get the rubbish from Green Island transfer station to the hidden hole at Smooth Hill.
Bet it'll be no better for the environment than if we all just burnt our rubbish in drums in our back yards.
Truck it, how else?