Levin landfill meeting most conditions

Horizons Regional Council has scrutinised Horowhenua District Council’s consent compliance for the Levin landfill and in its report for this past year said that it has met all but three of more than 240 conditions of its resource consents.

The report, done annually, notes significant progress has been made in the past year.

“There are over 240 conditions associated with the landfill’s five consents, not including sub-conditions, and only three are non-compliant, two of which were due to the same administration error,” said Horowhenua’s Environmental Engineer Ryan Hughes.

“The only significant issue was odour, and we have been working hard to resolve this. Council has implemented many improvements that include commissioning a state-of-the-art gas flare and building a new biofilter to prevent a recurrence. Both of these were designed for the site and, in also significantly reduce Horowhenua’s impact on climate change.

“The last verified odour incident was in September 2017. There have been some complaints since then, however these were unable to be verified by the regional council. We still treat these complaints as genuine and continue to investigate possible explanations.”

Horowhenua’s Deputy Mayor Wayne Bishop said the work carried out by Council will help prevent issues in the future.

“Horowhenua District Council takes its responsibilities very seriously and works extremely hard to meet the consent conditions for the sake of all residents, particularly those who live near the landfill, and to protect our environment.”

Horizons Regional Council strategy and regulation manager Dr Nic Peet said “we note that Horowhenua District Council has put a number of mitigations in place and that there haven’t been any verified odour incidents for over six months.

“Horizons’ interest is that they comply with consent conditions and stop any objectionable odour. It is up to Horowhenua District Council how they do that,” he said.

In addition to monitoring reports and site inspection, Horizons has taken a number of odour assessments, in response to odour complaints.

These complaints were initially from a complainant at one address, who shared a boundary with the landfill. This property was subsequently bought by the consent holder and there were no complaints to Horizons for about six months.

Since 8 June this year 12 more complaints were logged with Horizons. Of these, six were notified by email after the event with the remaining six called into the pollution hotline. Four of the complaints received by the pollution hotline resulted in site inspections. None of these resulted in objectionable odour from the Levin Landfill being detected.

Compliance of the Levin Landfill was assessed against resource consents 6009, 6010, 6011, 7289 and 102259 which are held by the Horowhenua District Council.

The focus of this compliance report is a data assessment of the monitoring reports collated by the Horowhenua District Council as required by the resource consents. The report cover the period 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2018.

All leachate generated onsite is piped directly to the Levin Waste Water Treatment Plant and there is no irrigation of leachate to land at the Levin landfill. “There has been a marked improvement in 2018, with significantly fewer complaints and no verified objectionable odour beyond the Levin landfill,” the report said.

As a result of this assessment the Levin Landfill has been given an overall Comply — On Track for consent 6009/1, Comply for consent 6010/1, a Significant Non — Compliance for consent 6011, (Discharge of landfill gas, odour and dust to air) and Comply — Full for consents 7289/1 and 102259/1.

Hughes said well-designed and maintained landfills are an essential part of modern life.

“The less waste generated, the fewer issues we will have. So, we encourage residents to minimise waste, and to reuse, recycle and compost to reduce pressure on our landfill.”

The compliance report made several recommendations on the five consents applying to the landfill. These were mostly around documentation and monitoring, so Horowhenua District Council can demonstrate compliance with the consents, the report said.