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Judges and commissioners from the Environment Court paid two more visits to Waste Management NZ’s (WM) proposed mega-landfill site last month, by helicopter and by road.
Judge Jeff Smith summarised the visits when the appeals case resumed online on Monday, March 20.
The trips were made after recent heavy rain events and the bench was able to see for themselves the effects on the landscape, from the source of the Hoteo River in the east right out to the Kaipara Harbour.
“We saw very fresh scarring, a great deal of slipping, including serious slumping on low-sloped areas you wouldn’t expect,” Smith said.
He said the worst slips were on farmland, followed by pine forests, but there was little evidence of slips in native bush. As for the landfill site itself, he said there was evidence of “general instability”.
“We flew through the footprint of the site and saw a number of slips, some of which were quite large,” he said.
The judge said of most concern was a very large slip near the bottom of the landfill site, where huge boulders had crashed down a steep drop, taking lots of soil with it.
“It blocked the stream at the bottom and there were a number of trees down.”
The judges and court officials then flew down the Hoteo to the Kaipara Harbour, where Smith said there had clearly been major flooding, slips and sedimentation.
He added that the flight and a subsequent road trip had been extremely helpful in giving them all a better understanding, not only of the site itself, but the whole area and the “incredibly diverse and folded nature of the land” that affected where and how water flowed.
“The largest area of unified coverage of native bush was between the Dome and Wayby Valleys,” he observed.
The bench also visited a number of WM’s other potential sites for the landfill, including west of SH1 and the Wayby Valley site and Pebblebrook Quarry, near Wainui.
The court heard that because of damage caused by Cyclone Gabrielle, the Puatahi Marae at Glorit was no longer able to host the cultural evidence, which is due to be heard over three days from April 3 to 5.
Counsel for Ngati Whatua Rob Enwright said the marae’s roof had been substantially damaged in the storm and the decision had been made to move the court sessions to Te Ao Marama Maori Cultural Centre at Te Hana.
The rest of last week’s proceedings were taken up with some intense cross-examination of planning witnesses, including whether the landfill would meet statutory criteria laid down in the Resource Management Act and the Auckland Unitary Plan, and proposed conditions.
Judge Smith also raised the question of how, and if, Overseas Investment Office conditions had changed when the OIO approved the sale of WM from Beijing Capital Group NZ Investment Holdings to multinational investment group Tui BidCo in August last year.
“We have found the public version of that consent and those conditions,” he said. “Compared to the current one, it is somewhat different, which raises questions for the court. This has caused mental frustration for me, so it would be useful to know.”
