2019-04-09 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                        9 APRIL 2019


additional engineering and controls that would be implemented will come at an additional cost to
Council.
Further information will be provided once the investigations are completed.

Landfill leachate system maintenance and upgrade
In November 2018, funding was made available through the capital works budget to conduct
important repairs and upgrades to leachate collection and pumping infrastructure at the Eumundi
Road landfill. The works were completed in early 2019. This included:
   The major switchboard/control box replacement along with hardware updates to the
     SCADA remote telemetry system. The improvement to the telemetry system ensures more
     accurate remote monitoring and control of the leachate system. Additional recent
     improvements in ICT now mean that Waste Officers can access the telemetry and control
     system remotely from any location.
   Monitoring probes have been replaced to ensure accurate and reliable monitoring of
     leachate levels in sumps and pump wells.
   A new upgraded emergency shut-off valve to prevent overfilling of the major pumpwell to
     sewer.
   A new and upgraded pump has been installed in the landfill sump.

Increased leachate disposal to sewer
Waste Officers met with representatives from Unitywater to discuss Council’s request to increase
leachate disposal volumes to sewer. This allows Council to take pressure off the landfill leachate
system more quickly following high rainfall events.
The pre-existing discharge limits remain in place for normal weather periods (150kl per day),
however during wet weather events, Unitywater will now accept up to 300kl per day. This greatly
assists Council in managing leachate at the landfill during extreme weather events.

Environmental Compliance
The following notifications for the landfill have been made to the Department of Environment and
Science within 2018. The table below shows their resolutions to demonstrate the incidents did
not lead to off-site environmental impacts.

       Date                Incident                                  Resolution
18 September 2018   High Methane           The methane was identified as sourcing from the leachate
                    detected across        collection riser that was not yet connected to the leachate
                    batter                 collection flare system. LMS have now connected the
                                           collection riser the high methane was escaping from to
                                           the flare system
28 November 2018    High Methane over      Immediately capped and retested. No further action form
                    the landfill batter    DES. Identified that LMS pipes required cleaning out.
2 January 2019      Failure in newly       Water quality monitoring upstream and downstream of
                    replaced pump parts,   the incident found leachate indicators did not persist
                    leachate released to   within the receiving waters at the location they leave the
                    the clean water        landfill boundary.
                    channel
No actual or potential environmental harm from landfilling operations was recorded during 2018.
The annual reporting highlighted there are currently some anomalies in the groundwater at the
up-gradient monitoring locations prior to the groundwater flowing under the landfill. A
groundwater expert is currently engaged to review the groundwater monitoring and make
recommendations regarding this issue.




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