Photo: ODT / LDR
A $3.5 million dollar cleanup to contain a historic landfill is underway at a Bluff beach.
The Ministry for the Environment provided about $500,000 from the Contaminated Sites and Vulnerable Landfills fund, while the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the Invercargill City Council would foot the rest of the bill.
The waste was believed to have come from a former landfill beneath the old Ocean Beach freezing works, which stood at the site for 100 years before it was closed in 1991.
More than a tonne of material had already been removed since industrial waste, including asbestos, was first found on the beach in 2018, and part of the beach has been closed to the public since then.
DOC Southland operation manager John McCarrol said while the public was unlikely to be exposed to the contaminants, there was still a risk, especially for the environment.
Waste would be excavated and sorted, with reclaimable clean material to be used within the site and the rest removed and disposed at an authorised class A landfill, McCarrol said.
The council and DOC planned to use more than 6000 tonnes of rock to build a 90-metre long seawall to prevent further erosion.
