The City of Newcastle has revealed plans to remediate the historical waste site at Astra Street, Shortland, to prevent erosion in the area and to protect the nearby Hunter Wetlands.
The project, which is expected to get under way next year, aims to rehabilitate the former landfill site where much of the debris from the Newcastle earthquake was buried.
“These works will allow City of Newcastle to help protect and maintain the local environment well into the future, safeguarding the water quality of surrounding wetlands and aquatic ecosystems, increasing biodiversity values and promoting long-term native vegetation growth,” council’s Acting Director of Infrastructure and Property Joanne Rigby said.
Rigby said the council was working closely with the Environmental Protection Authority to ensure the site would adhere to modern environmental management standards.
The project comes after long-standing concerns that the 37-hectare site has posed a danger to the RAMSAR-listed wetlands, after building materials, including asbestos, were dumped there following the earthquake.
The former Astra Street landfill site was established in 1974, prior to the earthquake, and held waste from across the Hunter until it was closed in 1995.
Initially, the cost of the remediation project was estimated to be around $20M, but due to the complexity and scale of the project, the cost is now expected to be around $30M.
“We have completed our preliminary investigations and finalised two detailed designs, which will improve the 20-year-old capping and drainage on the 37-hectare site,” Rigby said.
She said the detailed designs had allowed City of Newcastle to update its project estimates, with cost efficiencies and innovative methodologies to be explored where possible during the tender process.
Five companies will compete for the tender, which requires final capping and re-profiling of the site, drainage improvements to aid in management of surface water and sediment run-off, as well as revegetation and landscaping on completion.
Maia O’Connor