FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions

The money did not 'run out'. Council approved the project to remove the waste from the fly tipping sites. A budget estimate was put together based on the quantity believed to be there from surveys undertaken. A contingency budget was also in place in case more fly-tipped or landfill waste was removed. The contract was to remove all waste - not just some of it. We used the contingency to make sure no waste remained at Hampden or the two sites on Beach Road.

For the duration of the remediation works the road closure was managed by the contractor undertaking the work, Fulton Hogan. Once the project was complete, the cost of temporary traffic management would have come to Council. Officers undertook an estimate of the cost of temporary traffic management at the sites and found that the gates installed would be cheaper than maintaining three temporary traffic closure sites.  The seeded banking is to ensure the integrity of the site.

As a recent storm showed, our off-shore kelp beds are susceptible to extremely rough conditions - as is our rock armouring.

Potentially, although placing it on the beach at the foot of the cliffs could be more expensive than the work that Kiwirail does along the rail yards and Council does at the Orwell Street site as the bank is higher along most of the section that needs to be armoured.

That's a good question, and one which relies on the Government making decisions about transport. We're certainly keeping an eye on the situation but it is a decision for central Government.

This is a stretch of SH1 and so is NZTA controlled, not Council.

That is one of the options being presented in this years Long-Term Plan consultation document.

It was already planned to consult with the community about the future of Beach Road North prior to the finalisation of the remediation which saw the road severed in two locations.

We already knew we needed to discuss whether to continue to invest in rock armouring to protect the road with the community. The conversation has changed a little, as we now also need to discuss whether to reopen the road.  

The cost of realigning is around $750,000 - which is a significant spend, especially if other protective measures against erosion aren't taken. We could reroute the road, but a significant winter storm could sever it elsewhere. Before a decision is made, we wanted the community to be fully aware of the potential costs and consequences.

We are proposing rerouting around the holes using road reserve, and what protecting the road would cost. To reroute the entire road 20 metres back would be significantly more costly.

The ETS and Waste Levy are required to be paid to the Government. However as this involved historic waste, the $5.6 million we've paid to the Government is expected to be returned. Unlike other Councils, Waitaki took preventative action about these sites. The MFE have indicated they will return the money - as we did not create new waste, but stored old waste safely away to protect the environment. As we're the first Council to make this request, they're currently working out the process to refund us.

Testing before excavation determined high levels of lead, arsenic and other nasty waste related chemicals in the ground. It was about thirty years of everything locals didn't take to landfill, and some of it had degraded significantly. It's all now safely stored and capped at the former Palmerston Landfill.

There are two funds that relate to landfills. The first, the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund (CSRF), could be applied to by Regional Councils and Unitary Authorities. ORC applied to this fund in 2018 regarding Beach Road, and was rejected. In 2021, enquiries were made about another application and Council was informed Beach Road would not be considered a high priority for the fund.

The second, the Contaminated Sites and Vulnerable Landfill (CSVL) fund was announced in May 2024 and gazetted in September 2024. By May, Council had completed the new landfill cell in Palmerston, and by September contractors were on site at Beach Road having completed the waste extraction at Hampden.

The CVSL did not open for applications until October 2024, by which time work was nearing completion at all sites. The funding panel is meeting to approve applications in February 2025. Applications could also not be made for work already completed.

So, we did not qualify for one fund and the second fund opened to applications after we had planned, contracted and nearly completed the work.

The consent for the Palmerston Landfill expires in 2027, so making use of the site while we could still store waste there was a cost-effective option. It's a site that is a considerable distance from the sea, and the cell could be connected to our wastewater network to deal with leachate.

The future of Beach Road was always planned to be part of this Long Term Plan, as the requirement for rock armouring would have been needed even if Project Reclaim excavation had not severed the road in two places.

The process of extracting tonnes of historic waste from these sites was complicated, and required significant extraction and the placement of waste in a new landfill cell. Logistically, carting new material in could only have taken place once that was completed and would have expanded both the time-scale and the cost of this project.

The aim of Project Reclaim was to move all historic waste from three sites at risk of coastal erosion. That meant removing all of the waste, so we would not have to return at a later date and with additional cost, to repeat the process in future. 

Wastewater from Oamaru Central, South Hill, Weston and Kakanui is pumped there before it heads to our treatment plant. Effectively, it would mean the sewerage system would not work until we could get the site restarted and sewage would flow out into the ocean.

Our 2025-34 Long Term Plan considers the next nine years of Council projects, which includes these sites.The 2022 storm event exacerbated coastal erosion, especially around the Orwell Street site.