THE PRESS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1981. Reverse on refuse

Press, 2 November 1981, Page 22

THE PRESS MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1981. Reverse on refuse

The plans of the Metropolitan Refuse Committee have been thrown into disarray by the failure to fix on a site for the northern transfer station and by the Waimairi County Council’s rejection of the proposed landfill site. The obstacle placed in the way of the landfill being developed at the proposed site in the Waimairi County is by far the more serious. The Waimairi County Council’s decision can be described only as a major reverse for a well conceived and badly needed scheme.

The Metropolitan Refuse Committee may yet find its way round the obstacle. It can appeal against the Waimairi County Council’s decision or it may look for an alternative site. Perhaps it will go back to square one and set about devising an entirely new scheme. These upsets must not lead to the end of the whole metropolitan refuse scheme as it has so far been planned and developed. If each of the constituent councils were to try to solve its own particular rubbish problems — and most will be chary of attempting further co-operation if the present scheme is abandoned — the over-all costs will be very much higher and the environmental damage more severe, even if more diffused.

The Christchurch City Council is particularly keen to have the present scheme proceed rapidly so that it can close the Bexley tip in two years time. The council’s reasons for wanting to do this are partly political, just as was Waimairi’s decision not to allow the landfill to be placed on the proposed site. The Christchurch City Council also has thoroughly practical reasons. The Bexley tip simply cannot continue to take rubbish much longer, even if the council were willing to ignore the interests of the tip’s neighbours. Although it will be to the city’s advantage to have the site of the new landfill fixed quickly, the metropolitan rubbish scheme is not a city council scheme. It solves the problems of all the local bodies which are members of the Metropolitan . Refuse Committee — including those of Waimairi County.

Some of these local bodies are ' becoming understandably impatient about the delays to the scheme and are beginning to jib at the costs, which each delay tends to increase. The messing around is costing the ratepayers money, although it is no

longer appropriate for the chairman of the Waimairi County to complain of this, as he did earlier in October; his council has caused the most vexing, time-consuming, and costly delay of all.

The other local bodies which are party to the scheme can fairly demand of Waimairi that it point out a new way forward now it has blocked the way already charted. No-one has ever pretended that there are no problems with the landfill site that the Waimairi County has rejected. No site will be free of problems; the “best possible” site means the one with' the' least problems. The responsible course for the Waimairi County to have taken would have been to specify the conditions that would have made the proposed landfill site the “best possible” in most people’s eyes.

If the landfill were properly managed, the nuisances could have been reduced to a level that did not adversely affect either the public health or the amenity of nearby residential areas. What was being proposed need not have been the open tip of the past, had the Waimairi County exercised its powers positively.

The Council appears to have been moved, primarily by what it conceived to be its duty to the residents, of the area likely to be affected by the landfill operations. It could have fulfilled this duty by imposing conditions on the operations; it need not have ruled the operations out entirely. The council has also a duty to residents of other parts of the county and indeed of the whole metropolitan area, who want to see as soon as is practicable the best possible rubbish disposal scheme that is compatible with econo'my and with safeguarding the environment. A major landfill site simply has to be found. However successful the ' recycling and composting schemes with which the Christchurch City Council is wisely experimenting, the need for such a landfill will remain. The onus is now on the Waimairi County Council to show that some site, other than the one it has just rejected, is the right site. If it cannot do this, the council should take up its proper task and,. with the co-operation of the Metropolitan Refuse Committee, devise the rules and conditions that will reduce to the lowest possible level those nuisances and dangers which are inevitable wherever the landfill is located.