Gympie council spends $4m on Bonnick Rd dump expansion

Gympie council’s plans to squeeze as much life out of its Bonnick Rd rubbish tip as possible will come at a whopping cost but one director claims a lack of other options leaves little room for choice.

Gympie council’s plans to squeeze as much life out of Bonnick Rd as possible are moving forward, but sustainability director Adrian Burns has revealed the council’s choice was almost non-existent given the huge cost of doing nothing compared to the price tag for expanding Bonnick Rd.

Gympie councillors are spending at least another $4m trying to squeeze more life out its rapidly filling dump, and they might not be done yet.

Councillors voted unanimously to award the contract for constructing a new eastern cell at Bonnick Rd to Curra-based Offaly Civil, with expansion expected to breathe another four years into Bonnick Rd’s lifespan.

The new section to buy them time to make a final plan on where the region’s rubbish will end up in the future.

Offaly’s $3.94m tender was the lowest of the four under consideration at Tuesday afternoon’s special council meeting.

The next closest was $5m, from Durak Civil.

The money for the upgrade has been put budgeted within the council’s capital works programs for 2022-23 and 2023-24.

However, it emerged during the meeting councillors’ choices were extremely limited.

Councillor Shane Waldock not impressed with the timing of the report, asking why councillors were being presented with a proposal to accept a multimillion-dollar contract despite having only been given the documentation on it less than 24 hours earlier.

Sustainability director Adrian Burns told the meeting the alternative to not expanding the dump was to spend about four-times the contract’s amount in the coming years.

“If we have to truck waste – which we will have to do if we don’t build this cell – we’re talking $4m straight up off the bat, in the first half of next year,” Mr Burns said.

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This could happen due to things “outside the scope” but needed to finish the job including rehabilitation to some access roads and areas of the existing dump.

“Significant risks” also existed due to the expansion being built next door to the existing dump which could cause price blow outs too, as did the “highly constrained” construction schedule.

Gympie council CEO Robert Jennings (pictured) said he was committed to making sure future reports to meetings were not late, following concerns raised by Shane Waldock about when the short time frame in which information was given to councillors.

Shane Waldock was less than impressed with the timing of the report.

He said it was sent to councillors at 5.10pm Monday night and less than 24 hours later “we’re faced with (voting on) a multimillion-dollar contract”.

“It’s a little concerning it’s such a large sum and we’ve had such a short notice,” Mr Waldock said.

CEO Robert Jennings noted the council’s staff had been late on other items as well recently and “it’s my commitment … to make sure we don’t do that again”.

“This is a tender that we’d like to get really quickly,” Mr Jennings said.

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Chief financial officer David Lewis said with the expansion “time is of the essence”.

“We’re running out of airspace at Bonnick Rd,” Mr Lewis said.

He said without the expansion moving forward the council would be “forced into another alternative strategy around our waste management”.

Mr Lewis said the council was still moving ahead with an aim of any contingency spending being no more than 5-10 per cent ($200,000 to $400,000) “and then bring any variations back to council above that threshold”.

Mr Burns said a report into what the future plans are for the region’s waste once Bonnick Rd is filled will be put before councillors in the near future, possible even at the June 2023 meeting.