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Cometh the hour, cometh the woman – the fight to save the Dome is far from over for Michelle Carmichael.
When Waste Management shattered the peace of the Dome and Wayby valleys with its landfill plans nearly three years ago, life was changed irrevocably for many local residents. For those who live nearest the site and others who were motivated to fight it, the dump has dominated daily life ever since, causing stress and sleepless nights and impacting family life and work.
Michelle Carmichael has become the best-known face of Fight the Tip, Save the Dome, the protest group and Facebook page set up in September 2018, just after news of the dump plan broke.
She was busy focusing on family, friends and her work as a teacher up until then, and protesting had never been on her agenda.
“I talked to neighbours and went to the open days, and the things I saw and heard there didn’t ring true – that motivated me to get involved,” she says.
Before she knew it, she was neck-deep in organising everything from public meetings and roadside protests to conducting in-depth research and writing submissions.
“Looking back, it’s been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours,” she says. “It was not uncommon for me go to work all day, come home, eat with the family and then be on the computer until two or three in the morning.”
The long hours and effort involved over the past few years have taken their toll, both personally and professionally. She took a cut in her work hours and pay to give more time to the cause, and her devotion to the fight was a key factor in the breakdown of her marriage.
“It hasn’t been an easy year,” she says. “The type of commitment needed to fight this is wide-ranging, multi-skilled and time consuming. It gets to a point where you get angry that we have had to do all this, it all seems completely unfair. The system is definitely weighted towards the corporates.”
She says it can be scary taking on a global giant – “especially when you know the money they’ve got available to them and the connections there are” – and navigating the labyrinthine resource consent process.
“It’s very unfair, because it limits who can get involved to those who can see through it.”
However, there have been positive changes from the process, too.
“Definitely my confidence,” she says. “There’s no way I ever thought I’d be making live TV appearances. But the real positives are the people I’ve met through this, that’s been incredible. And the hikoi, that was amazing. Also, we’ve achieved community and iwi unity – that gives me goosebumps every time I think about it.”
Leane Barry is finding it hard to see many positives since resource consent was granted on June 14.
She will be the dump’s nearest neighbour if it goes ahead, living just one-kilometre from the fill site, on State Highway 1. It was Leane who broke the news of Waste Management’s plans, when they cold-called her back in September, 2018.
She couldn’t understand why anyone would contemplate siting a dump in the steep Dome Valley hills at the time, and she still can’t. The only thing that has changed is her disappointment and disillusionment with national leaders who have failed to stop the proposals.
“I just think it’s incredibly sad,” she says. “The Government is not getting on board with it. Our important people are not fronting. Why is that? It’s got to be money. But Wellington has got to see what’s going on. We have to get Wellington to sit up and take notice.”
She says there is no way she could afford to take her case to the Environment Court on her teaching salary and she can’t see how WM can be stopped, short of some kind of drastic action.
“I can’t think of anything else in New Zealand that would have such far-reaching, disastrous consequences as this, but other than holding them to ransom somehow, I don’t know how we’ll stop it.”
Leane has only recently returned to work after a year off with post traumatic complex regional pain syndrome, which developed after she broke an arm and leg. While her accident was nothing to do with the landfill, the pain syndrome is certainly not helped by the worry.
“The more stressed I get, the worse the condition gets,” she says. “It’s been the worst time, but I really try to put things like that in the back of my head. I’m getting back to full health slowly, that’s most the important thing. I don’t know what happens next.”
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