Development on Actively Gassing Landfill Site
Abstract
Since 1995 Sinclair Knight Merz have been involved in the investigations and planning for the development of a residential retirement village on a 9 ha site of an old abandoned landfill in central Auckland, New Zealand. Early geotechnical investigations showed that the site contained enough organic material to consider landfill gas as a significant hazard that required further investigation prior to submitting a resource consent for re-development.
Subsequent detailed landfill gas investigations indicated high methane concentrations, but emission flow rates were very low. As the risk of landfill gas to development is defined as the combination of concentration and flow rate (as opposed to concentration alone), it is shown that the site can be safely developed with appropriate landfill gas protection and mitigation measures.