Rangitıkei River rubbish
Waste from an historical landfill continues to surge down the Rangitı¯kei River following a failed attempt to alter its path.
Rubbish first seeped from the Putorino landfill, near Halcombe, when it was exposed by a changing river bed last October, prompting officials to spring into action.
A stopbank was crafted to divert the flow, but it has since collapsed and failed to restore the river to its natural path.
Ten metres of the landfill has now crumbled into the river, with plastic, steel drums and rusted sheets of corrugated iron strewn up to five kilometres downstream.
Closer to the site, a steel tank and old car are among the bigger items submerged in the water.
The Putorino landfill was commissioned under the former Rangitı¯kei County Council, which ceased to exist in 1989, but district council chief executive Ross Mcneil estimated the rubbish tip was filled as early as the 1970s.
The council were not aware of the breach in the stopbank, but tests had revealed the material in the landfill was ‘‘mostly benign’’.
‘‘Much of it is soil, building or construction material ... I’d call it more of a clean-fill site based on that description,’’ Mcneil said.
Contractors had removed rock, which had built up over time, to deepen the original channel and move the river path away from the landfill.
Mcneil doubted whether the rubbish along the riverbank had come from the landfill, but he said the council would assess the damage and carry out a risk assessment.
John Bolton-riley and Gordon Mccrae, who often jetboat along the river, said the landfill seemed smaller each time they went past.
‘‘I went up three weeks ago, but half of it [the landfill] has eroded since then – probably 10 metres,’’ Bolton-riley said.
‘‘I didn’t recognise it. If you go further up from the landfill, we’re not seeing any [rubbish on the riverbank], so it must be the cause.’’
Bolton-riley discovered the landfill while boating up the river with a mate from Japan.
He believed it would be a great way to showcase the district’s natural beauty, but he was instead left redfaced and embarrassed as kilometres of plastic debris passed by.
Mcrae said the council had used small rocks from the river bed to create a 40-metre stopbank, but had failed to secure it with boulders, which would be less prone to washing away in high flows.
‘‘I’m no engineer, but what they’ve done is not effective. What they’ve done is a shambles,’’ he said.
‘‘The end result is we’ve got a West Coast rubbish dump on our back door.’’
Mcneil said the council was looking at options to protect the landfill from further erosion and it would consult with ratepayers.
‘‘The end result is we’ve got a West Coast rubbish dump on our back door.’’ Gordon Mccrae