Levin's landfill could be closed by the end of next year.
Ongoing community concerns about the Hokio Beach Rd landfill have resulted in Horowhenua District Council proposing early closure of the Levin landfill, though four councillors are dead against it.
Councillors voted 7-4 for closure of the landfill in 2022, and in line with the Local Government Act the public will now get their say on all three options: Close the landfill in 2022, close it by the end of 2025 or continue to operate it until the resource consent expires in 2037.
While councillors voted for option 1, those who want a different option need to be persuasive during the consultation period.
The landfill is temporarily closed because it is almost at capacity and the council has studied options to extend it. In the meantime, for the next six months all Horowhenua's rubbish and some from Kāpiti will be going to the Bonny Glen landfill in Turakina.
Horowhenua mayor Bernie Wanden said the council considered presentations provided by Morrison Solutions, Berl and Stantec and had listened to the community's concerns.
As a result, it put forward a proposal for community consultation, which could see the landfill closed in 2022, he said.
Councillors Wayne Bishop, Ross Brannigan, Sam Jennings and Todd Isaacs voted against the plan to close the landfill next year.
Wanden said: "We believe the early closure of the Levin landfill in 2022 is the best outcome for the council from a strategic, financial, wellbeing and risk perspective.
"Any other option is clearly not sustainable. It is the right thing to do. We are showing that we care about our community and a sustainable and viable future."
Supporting the resolution, councillor David Allan said: "It's not about putting our rubbish somewhere else; it's about saying there are cleaner options that will benefit our community and New Zealand."
Submissions will be open from November 30 to January 31.
Wanden said: "Although the council manages the disposal of our community's waste, it remains the responsibility of all of us to rethink how we can minimise our consumption of disposables.
"Today the council is dealing with the impacts of decisions made 50 years ago, when the then council didn't have the data, science and information we do now. As elected members representing our community's best interests, we are well aware that our decisions today are intergenerational. As individuals, we also need to adapt to this thinking."
Councillor Victoria Kaye-Simmons said: "We are responsible today to make the right decision. We can use this opportunity to continue improving our solid waste practices. And as individuals, we need to embrace the 'reduce, recycle and waste minimisation' mantra."
Isaacs voted for option 3, continuing to operate the landfill until the end of 2037.
As a former owner of a waste management company, he said the landfill was consented to until 2037, which has cost a lot of money.
"The problems are with the old landfill and remedial work on that one will start in 2023."
He said he believed it would be advantageous for Levin to have its own landfill and it should deal with its own waste.
A representative from Morrison Solutions, the consultancy that suggested the landfill closure by the end of 2022 was the best option all around, told the council meeting that the level of waste produced in Horowhenua was high compared with other councils and was going up. She estimated waste disposal was at 660kg per person each year.
The Chronicle understands many operational and financial details of reports on the landfill closure are considered commercially sensitive and won't be made public. Elected members are unable to talk about that content as a result. These details were discussed in committee during last Wednesday's council meeting.
Bishop said on Thursday he also voted against closure of the landfill. "I feel this has not been properly explored. If we close it we lose control over how we deal with waste. We have consent for another million tonnes of waste, why give it up?"
He said issues identified with the current old landfill, which dated back to the 1950s, were only minor. According to the experts, there had been no noticeable odour in the area since 2017, when a gas flare was installed.
Complaints since then had not been able to be substantiated by council officers. Bishop rubbished the regional council's claims that no methane monitoring had been done.
"As long as it is our landfill we can continue to explore new technologies to deal with and reduce waste," Bishop said.
Jennings was scathing about the decision-making process and the gaps in the reporting he perceived. He said no one was prepared to challenge the information or data provided and there had been little opportunity to do so in the first place.
He said in an email to the media that he believed his concerns were being ignored by Wanden as well as chief executive David Clapperton and he claimed neither his nor other councillors' questions on the landfill closure had been answered.
Brannigan after the meeting said he voted against closure because he believed it wasn't the best outcome for the community.
He said keeping to the original agreement to close the landfill at the end of 2025, though the least preferred option as far as the consultants were concerned, would give Horowhenua time to consider other options.
This decision is throwing the community to the wolves.
"This decision is throwing the community to the wolves. We understand the community do not want to keep the landfill open but a few more years would allow us to find a better solution for the ratepayers.
"We should take the emotion out of the argument and look at the financial impact of this decision.
"We have not looked at better options ... All we are doing is putting the problem in someone else's backyard. We have been criticised for taking waste from Kāpiti and now they want all our waste to go to Marton."
Pressure group Over It, however, was jubilant. Its spokesman, Peter Thompson, described the decision as "a major step forward and a big win for the environment".
He warned, however, that the "battle" was by no means over and a final council decision "sealing the deal" would not be made until February.
"Our sincere congratulations to the seven councillors who voted for Option 1 (early closure); they've signalled that they're finally listening to the community and have definitely put themselves on the right side of history," Thompson said in a press release.
Every day the landfill stays open is another day of environmental abuse.
Thompson said he believed that "every day the landfill stays open is another day of environmental abuse".
MidWest Disposals, which owns the Bonny Glen landfill, operates the Levin landfill and the Levin transfer station, is an Auckland company jointly owned by Waste Management Ltd and Envirowaste Services Ltd, both based in Auckland.
Waste Management is owned by Beijing Capital Group NZ Investment Holding Ltd, also based in Auckland. That company is owned by BCG NZ Investment Holding Limited, based in Hong Kong.
On September 9 last year, the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) granted a consent for overseas investment in sensitive land, being the applicant's acquisition of a freehold interest in 0.7082ha of land at 852 Wanganui Rd, Turakina to Midwest Disposals, which had managed the landfill since 2000, to extend the landfill.
In its decision the OIO said Midwest Disposals is a 50:50 joint venture between:
•Waste Management NZ Limited, owned by Chinese Government, China (45.25 per cent), China Public (37.87 per cent), Hong Kong Public (16.88 per cent)
•Enviro Waste Services Limited, owned by CK Hutchison Holdings Limited, Hong Kong (71.93 per cent) and Various (28.07 per cent)
Beijing Capital Group NZ Investment Holding has owned Waste Management since 2014, while CK Hutchison Holdings Hong Kong has owned Envirowaste Services since 2013.
Beijing Capital Group NZ Investment Holding's sole shareholder is BCG NZ Investment Holding.
Envirowaste Services' shareholder is Enviro (NZ) Ltd, which is owned by Cencioni Ltd, based in the British Virgin Islands.
Midwest Disposals owns three blocks of land in Turakina on Wanganui Rd and Bruce Rd as well as 1 Sheffield St in Levin. It has nine employees based at various sites around the country and according to a D&B business directory has achieved US$2.89 million in sales a year.
It has an agreement with the Horowhenua District Council to run the Levin transfer station until next year, mayor Wanden told the Chronicle today.
Bonny Glen now takes waste from Taranaki, Whanganui, Palmerston North, Wairarapa, Rangitikei, and now from Horowhenua and some from Kāpiti (until their contract with Midwest expires in 2023), and has consents until 2055.
"While compliance with resource consents continues for another 30 years after closure of the landfill, the rules won't be as stringent. Closure next year will allow us to start work on the leaching problems with the old landfill a lot sooner," Wanden said.
He said the evidence for closure in 2022 was to him overwhelming, comprehensive and peer-reviewed. "We have been working on this for a few years, but early closure doesn't mean that we can walk away from the Levin landfill. The problems with leaching must be dealt with."
Police are appealing for more information.