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A consultant planner for Auckland Council made a complete U-turn at the hearings into the proposed Dome Valley landfill yesterday (Thursday, December 17), when he backtracked from his original recommendation that resource consent be refused and instead recommended that commissioners approve the application.
Mark Ross said he was now in a position where he was comfortable with all the physical effects of the proposed landfill and his original concerns over the loss of streams and adverse effects on native frogs, bats and birds had been assuaged by Council specialists and Waste Management’s mitigation proposals.
He said the rare Hochstetter’s frog was present at the site, but the habitat was “not great” to start with, since pine harvesting wiped out the population every 35 years anyway. He said Waste Management was doing all it possibly could to relocate them.
“There’s no doubt we’re going to lose a significant number of frogs,” he said. “The fact that they can recolonise a pine plantation means, perhaps, that they are more hardy than we give them credit for.”
He was also happy with mitigation and contingency plans for other wildlife, waterways, landfill engineering, stormwater and leachate, hydrogeology and sediment. He said the only area he was struggling with was the cultural effects on mana whenua, and the concerns passionately expressed by iwi over the loss of waterways and risk of leachate getting into the Hoteo River, Kaipara Harbour and aquifer.
“There should be a low tolerance of risk there,” he said. “But I consider there’s a very high level of management to ensure that an event that has high impact, being a large release of leachate into ground or surface water, essentially will not occur. I just don’t see it as a possibility.
“On balance, I’m happy to support those risks being acceptable.”
Mr Ross said it was the first time in his 20-year career that he had reversed his recommendation, and he now thought the application should be granted.
Earlier in the day, Council policy planner Ryan Bradley stood by his original recommendation that the private plan change to classify the 1000 hectare site as a special landfill precinct be approved. He said, following advice from Council specialists, that there would not be adverse effects on the Kaipara Harbour and he now believed that proposed biodiversity offsets – relocating native wildlife – could work on the site.
Commissioners questioned Mr Bradley on why he had no expert advice from Council specialists on Maori issues and mana and tangata whenua, when he had for every other aspect of the application.
“I think there’ve been restructures, I don’t think those people exist,” he said. “It was the hardest part of the report. I can’t evaluate it, I don’t have the ability to judge one way or another. For every other part of the report I had specialists. For that there was no one.”
He said there were many pages of submissions containing iwi views and concerns, and he accepted that not all cultural and spiritual issues were tangible or could be proved by science.
“But I don’t think it tips the balance on this whole proposal for a plan change,” he said.
“If there had been effects on water that could have been proven and real, that could have swung it. It’s finely balanced, I’m now accepting there are effects, but I don’t think it’s enough to make me change my recommendation.”
The hearings are continuing with Waste Management’s responses to what submitters and Council have said.
