Consents granted for Burwood Resource Recovery Park
An acoustic fence will be built and Landfill Avenue will be realigned, as conditions of the Burwood Resource Recovery Park resource consents granted yesterday.
Christchurch City Council Water and Waste Manager Mark Christison says the consent and the conditions attached to them balance the essential role the park plays in Christchurch’s recovery with the disruption caused to local communities.
“Christchurch has an unprecedented amount of construction and demolition waste to deal with following the earthquakes, and our wastewater system could not keep going without somewhere to deposit the sand from broken pipes.”
Burwood Resource Recovery Park (BRRP) has received approximately 350,000 tonnes of building rubble so far, with another 150,000 tonnes of demolition waste expected as the rebuild continues.
In the accompanying report on the decision, Commissioner Ken Lawn says the most significant issue was the effect on residents of heavy vehicles travelling along the first part of Landfill Avenue, where it adjoins residential properties.
“I reached the conclusion that utilising the existing roading alignment produced effects (mainly noise and dust) on those residents that were unacceptable for an extended period of time (up to five years). The applicant has agreed to a number of measures to remedy those effects. These include shifting the Landfill Avenue formation, the construction of an acoustic barrier, and other conditions on the maintenance of the road and the movement and conditions of the heavy vehicles using the road,” says Commissioner Ken Lawn.
Christchurch City Council accepts the conditions and Mark Christison says the council, SCIRT and BRRP’s operators share the Commissioner’s concerns about the effects of noise, dust and vehicle movements on vehicle movements.
“We know a considerable effort is needed to reduce the park’s effects on the local communities and we will work hard to implement these mitigation measures as quickly as we can,” says Mark Christison.
Environment Canterbury Regional Manager RMA Monitoring and Compliance Brett Aldridge says the Burwood landfill has been seen as a pragmatic option for dealing with the large volume of waste resulting from the earthquakes. This has been reconfirmed now there has been a full RMA process which has assessed the effects of the waste processing and has put in place conditions to mitigate these effects.
Environment Canterbury will continue to work closely with the Christchurch City Council to ensure all requirements are followed, he says.
Local residents and the site operator will also be given the opportunity to establish a Community Liaison Group (CLG). The CLG will listen to and discuss any community and cultural concerns, develop additional mitigation measures as required and discuss the complaints register and other monitoring of the site. A community meeting about the consent and its conditions will be held at Queenspark Baptist Church on Monday, 15 October from 7.30-9pm.
Building rubble from building demolitions has been sent to the old Burwood Landfill and three other smaller areas of the surrounding Bottle Lake Forest since the earthquake on the authority of the Civil Defence National Controller. Material that cannot be sorted on construction sites is sorted, processed and recycled with residual waste material from this sorting process going into a new cell on the existing Burwood Landfill. An Order in Council allowed for the park’s ongoing operation in 2011, and the consents permit the park to operate for another five years.
For more information see www.ccc.govt.nz/burwoodresourcerecoverypark