SCA rules against farmers in long-running landfill spat

THE Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has ruled against a group of farmers and two commercial chicken enterprises in a long-running case about the establishment of a regional landfill at the Kalbaskraal site for the City.

The SCA dismissed, with costs, an appeal against a decision by the Western Cape High Court in favour of the provincial Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning and the City regarding the proposed regional landfill at Kalbaskraal in the West Coast District Municipality.

The appeal had been lodged by Country Fair Foods and Tydstroom Poultry together with a group of farmers, the Bottelfontein Action Group.

The two businesses have extensive broiler chicken farming interests close to the proposed regional landfill while the Bottelfontein Action Group is an association of farmers who carried on mixed farming activities, primarily the cultivation of cereal crops, on farms around Bottelfontein.

The high court had ruled that the department’s director was entitled to authorise the landfill at the Kalbaskraal location, but granted the appellants leave to appeal.

The SCA had to decide whether the high court was correct in allowing the establishment of the regional landfill.

Country Fair Foods and Tydstroom Poultry’s main practical concerns related to the impact the landfill would have on the groundwater used at the broiler houses, and that flies, rodents and birds would bring pathogens from the landfill to their broiler houses.

The Bottelfontein Action Group’s concerns were that the the landfill would give rise to the contamination of the groundwater which the vast majority of its members depended on for their farming activities.

The issue dates to 2000 when the City appointed consultants to identify and assess potential sites for a new landfill. The final two sites chosen were Atlantis and Kalbaskraal.

In January 2007, a final environmental impact assessment report relating to both sites was submitted to the department and the then director, acting under authority of the MEC, granted the City an environmental authorisation for thelandfill at the Atlantis site. However, following appeals from the public against the decision and in April 2009 the MEC upheld the appeals and granted environmental authorisation for the establishment of the new regional landfill at the Kalbaskraal site instead.

Not satisfied, the appellants instituted proceedings for judicial review in the high court eventually leading to the appeal at the SCA.

In its judgment the SCA held that the MEC was entitled on appeal to authorise the landfill activity to be carried out at Kalbaskraal as an alternative. The SCA found that it was clear that the sites were presented as alternatives and were equally subjected to environmental scrutiny as required.

The SCA also said an appeal against a decision of an officer exercising delegated authority on an application for an environmental authorisation, involved a complete rehearing and a fresh determination of the merits of the application with or without additional evidence or information.