Work to remove rubbish from an historic dump site neighbourhood reserve in Havelock North will start on Wednesday.
According to the Hastings District Council, the dump near the banks of the Karituwhenua Stream in Palmbrook Reserve appears to date from the 1960s or 1970s and was discovered in July when a volunteer planting group cleared weeds to prepare for new planting work.
Material uncovered includes old roofing iron, other building materials, earthenware pipes and machinery, and asbestos which was removed urgently when the issue was revealed.
A comprehensive plan to remove as much rubbish as possible without impacting the stream has been put together by the Council and the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.
It includes using an excavator to remove rubbish, after which a retaining wall will be built to protect the stream bank from collapsing into the waterway. The area will be covered and planted.
HDC asset group manager Craig Thew said historic landfills, both private and public, are an issue for councils across New Zealand.
"Unfortunately, good records were not kept, so that meant trawling through old documents to find references to sites and following those up," he said.
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The Council carried out comprehensive investigations into historic council dump sites last year, and Thew said: "The ones we have found have been investigated and are being monitored, especially after heavy weather events."
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Advertise with NZME.There had been almost no records kept of sites like that at Palmbrook, which was likely to have been used when the area was farmed – "a common practice back in the day."
"We have to rely on people like the planting group letting us know as soon as they find anything suspicious, after which we can investigate and put a mitigation plan in place."
Regional councillor and former National Government MP Craig Foss said the voluntary group in the area had been "fantastic" in looking after the reserve and surrounds, and it is "great to see the way the two councils have worked together to do something about it."
"Nobody seems to really know how long it has been there," he said. "But this not about finger-pointing. It is about making good."
Public concern was perhaps shown by the number of people who responded to a Facebook video relating to the Palmbrook issue he posted in August.
"It was one of the highest-viewed videos I've ever posted," said Foss, an MP for 12 years and a regional councillor since 2019.
He said getting the job done was just "one step", with many similar sites existing throughout Hawke's Bay, many polluting waterways still, with rubbish still being dropped ranging from parts of an engine block to plastic bottles.
