John Yeld
30 July 2007
Cape Town — The provincial government has given the environmental go-ahead for a proposed new regional landfill site about 40km north of Cape Town.
This approval is subject to an appeal period, expiring on August 15, during which objectors can write to Environment and Planning MEC Tasneem Essop.
The new landfill, on the farm Brakkefontein some 7km west of the N7 highway between Atlantis and the Koeberg nuclear power station, will have a 30-year-capacity and will cost an estimated R3 billion to develop.
Initially it will receive up to 3 800 tons of waste a day, escalating to 7 500 tons a day by 2017.
Waste will be transported by road or rail, with the percentage transported by either option to be determined by tendered transport costs.
A rail transfer facility with an 11 metre- high gantry will be built, and will include a 10m-wide platform and two new railway lines some 250m long, parallel to the existing Atlantis line.
The site is expected to employ about 50 people, including litter pickers.
The landfill will be used mainly for household and some industrial waste with a "low-to-moderate" hazard classification.
It will be built on a 448ha site which includes a major statutory health buffer zone. When full, the actual landfill area will cover some 176ha and average 50m above ground level.
The waste and its leachate (contaminated liquid draining from it) will be kept completely separate from the underlying soil and groundwater by means of a liner system and a leachate collection system. The on-site leachate treatment works will include an artificial reed bed for final "polishing" of the water.
A 2.4m high concrete palisade fence will be built around the entire site.
Last year, the city's residents generated some 2.7 million tons. The city will need to get rid of somewhere between 70 and 90 million tons of waste during the next three decades.
The search for a new regional landfill site was initiated in 2000 by the then Cape Metropolitan Council as the life of the existing regional landfill site at Vissershok, north of Milnerton was limited, although this has subsequently been extended by the addition of extra land.
The council commissioned a major review of the landfill situation, and consultants short-listed four sites from 29 possibilities that could serve the city for the next 30 years.
These were then narrowed to two: the current "Atlantis" site - although it is actually 6.5km south of Atlantis - which was finally selected, and a site at Kalbaskraal. During a comprehensive environmental impact assessment, 13 specialist studies were undertaken on potential impacts on groundwater, freshwater, air quality, botany, fauna, archaeological cultural heritage, visual impact, noise, traffic and socio-economic impacts.
Overall, these studies found that biophysical impacts of the proposed regional landfill would be lower at the Atlantis site than at Kalbaskraal, as would most socio-economic impacts.
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