ONLINE BRANCH EVENT - Risk Assessing, Remediating and Managing Closed Landfills in New Zealand

There are many thousands of old tip sites across New Zealand. As development increases, numerous closed landfills have quickly become valuable real estate for purposes ranging from public parks and wildlife sanctuaries to commercial and industrial uses. Many of these sites exist along the coastline and adjacent to rivers, presenting major environmental hazards if compromised by extreme weather events, sea level rise or inappropriate development and use.

Understanding where these sites are, when they were active and what they received is critical for councils and private landowners to establish their risk profiles and create prioritised asset management strategies to safely contain, rehabilitate or appropriately develop these complex sites.

PRESENTATIONS

Risk Assessment, Remediation and Management of Auckland Council’s Closed Landfills
Barton Bauzon (Principal Closed Landfills Specialist, Auckland Council) will provide insights into how Auckland Council looks after its portfolio of closed landfills, some of which have been comprehensively remediated and environmentally rehabilitated into public amenities, or re-purposed for commercial use. Many of these old fill sites require ongoing management due to potential continuing environmental discharges and other community impacts.  The latest iteration of the Closed Landfills Asset Management Plan (or CLAMP) will be discussed with a focus on the key drivers, processes and approaches taken, including how the CLAMP has evolved since its inception with Auckland City Council in 1998.  A sampling of recent and ongoing projects will be presented.

Understanding Our Vulnerable Closed Landfills
Jo Ferry (Principal Environmental Consultant, Tonkin & Taylor) will explore processes for establishing the risks from climate change and natural hazards to closed landfills, and how these can be used to build on traditional methods for assessing risks from closed landfills without breaking the bank. This will assist asset managers to make sound, risk-based decisions around rehabilitation and ongoing management of sites. The quantum of the issue of closed landfills that are potentially impacted by climate change for New Zealand will also be discussed, including the potential repercussions of different approaches to addressing the challenges that need to be faced to protect our environment and our communities from harm.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Barton Bauzon
Principal Specialist 
Auckland Council

Barton is a Principal Specialist - Closed Landfills at Auckland Council with over 20 years’ experience in contaminated land, health and safety. Prior to local government, he worked in the consultancy and private client sectors.  Barton has managed the closed landfill environmental monitoring and site investigation programmes.  Presently, he keeps himself busy with a number of strategic closed landfill projects.

Joanne Ferry
Principal Environmental Consultant 
Tonkin + Taylor

Jo is a Principal Environmental Consultant with over eighteen years' experience working in the contaminated land and waste sectors with Tonkin + Taylor. Her areas of expertise include investigation, consenting and reporting on closed landfills, and managing complex environmental projects. One of her current focus areas is understanding and managing risks from closed landfills which is the topic of this presentation.

Graham Aveyard,

Science Team Leader (Contaminated Land),

Environment Canterbury Regional Council.

Graham is the Science Team Leader (Contaminated Land) for Environment Canterbury Regional Council. Originally qualifying as an Environmental Health Officer over the last 25 years Graham has gravitated into a career in Environmental Protection.

Prior to leaving the UK he held roles specialising in regulation and managing a range of functions including Noise, Contaminated Land and Air Quality Management and has a particular interest in human health risks and communication.

Since moving to New Zealand he has contributed to a series of Specialist Interest Groups, ALGA Auckland and Christchurch Branch committees, the ALGA NZ Conference committee and presented on Contaminated land subjects at a range of conferences including EcoForum and the World Environmental Congress.