This media item was current at its release date. The facts or figures it contains may have changed since its original publication.

Source:  http://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/Community/Whats-happening/News/Media-releases/HCC-to-be-prosecuted-over-Pukete-sewage-spill/

“It sits on the most serious level of offending, whether it was deliberate or a serious lack of care, of dairy effluent of the worst kind,” said Judge Brian Dwyer.

Russell Ian Anderson and his wife Christine Anderson were sole traders and directors of Marypark Farms Ltd when Horizons Regional Council compliance officers visited their Levin property in March 2010 for a routine inspection.

That first visit highlighted issues with an unconsented feed pad and animal effluent ponding in several areas and running into a drain, in a litany of non-compliance horrors that continued for a year before the regional council took steps to prosecute. The council laid five charges of discharging cow effluent to land where it may enter water, and three charges of breaching an abatement notice.

Russell Anderson was also sentenced on four charges of discharging effluent in a manner significantly non-compliant with a resource consent and that could have entered water, and three charges of discharging effluent in a manner contravening an abatement notice.

Marypark Farms was also sentenced on one additional charge of digging an offal hole and disposing of dead animals into groundwater.

Council officers visited the Andersons’ property several times issuing abatement notices and providing help to the couple, to no avail. After one visit, officers described seeing a fountain of effluent shooting up in the air.

Council officers also discovered an offal pit with two dead cows partly submerged in water. While the council was unable to determine whether groundwater had been adversely affected, Marypark Farms was also sentenced for digging an offal hole and disposing of dead animals into groundwater.

Sentenced by Judge Brian Dwyer in Palmerston North District Court yesterday, Russell Anderson was criticised for entering a late guilty plea and having no remorse.

“You have been unco-operative with Horizons officers and entered a guilty plea only after negotiations at the beginning of the court hearing.”

Marypark Farms was wound up last year at a loss.

With Russell Anderson unable to pay a fine due to financial circumstances, Judge Dwyer instead imposed a sentence of six months’ community detention and 150 hours’ community service.

Judge Dwyer said he had taken into consideration the nature of the offending, the quantity of effluent and there was a lack of care and deference to any abatement notice.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/6268893/Fountain-of-effluent-greeted-visiting-officers

The provisional decision was a win for the Hunter Environment Lobby, represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, which had appealed to the court over the Minister for Planning’s decision to consolidate historical consent authorities of the Ulan mine, near Mudgee, and to double its operational life and capacity until 2031.

Ulan Coal Mines – which is owned by Xstrata and Mitsubishi – backed by the minister, and the Department of Planning, had argued that offsetting the mine’s scope 1 emissions was discriminatory, given that there are at least 50 coalmines operating in NSW.

Justice Nicola Pain found that the power to impose conditions on major infrastructure projects – those captured by the now repealed Part 3A procedure – was wide.

”That this is the first such condition imposed on a coalmine in NSW is not necessarily discriminatory,” she said. ”It is simply the first occasion that has occurred.

”As other operating coalmines seek approval to modify or extend their operations, or new coalmines are opened, it would be open to the consent authority, which may be the minister, to impose a similar condition.”

The law firm Norton Rose said the implications of the ”landmark” decision spread beyond the coal industry.

”Owners of existing coalmines and proponents of proposed coalmines, and more broadly proponents of other types of emissions-intensive developments, should be aware that the decision has the potential to broaden the range of conditions approval which may be imposed by the minister or the court under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act in relation to new or modified development proposals,” the firm said.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/miner-facing-emissions-charge-20120116-1q22u.html

A resident had complained to the government about dead trees near the Narrabri coal seam gas project, formerly operated by Eastern Star Gas and now operated by Santos, on October 28, 2011 but the spill came to light only two weeks ago, when a farmer rang the local radio station.

Tony Pickard said he had seen dead trees and grass, and sludgy pools of water, near an osmosis plant on December 30, 2011 and decided to report it to the media. ”I saw an area that was completely denuded of any live grass and trees of all ages were dying. There were pools of black water … it smelt like a rotting sewer.”

Santos formally reported the incident to the government on January 6, and an investigation is under way that could result in prosecution.

”A Santos review of Eastern Star Gas records has identified that a pipeline failure occurred on June 25, 2011, which resulted in a discharge of 10, 000 litres of saline coal seam gas water,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Trade and Investment said.

A Canterbury farm manager who illegally discharged dairy effluent to land on a Springston property in October 2010 has been fined $20,000 and sentenced to 260 hours of community service after mitigation factors were taken into account.

Blair Lloyd knowingly discharged dairy effluent into a waterway that flows into Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere over a period of four days. The court was advised that the discharge would cumulatively compromise the values of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere and the strategies to improve and rehabilitate the natural character of the Lake.

Mr Lloyd was charged with discharging dairy effluent to land via a travelling irrigator and by means of an open pipe, which he disconnected from the blocked irrigator and placed under trees nearby.

Judge Kellar noted that some 44,360 litres of diluted effluent discharged in the four days before it was found by Environment Canterbury staff.

In sentencing Mr Lloyd, Judge Paul Kellar said that this case was one of the worst of its kind and believed it to be the largest effluent discharge breach ever before a court in Canterbury. He ruled that it was very deliberate offending and the extent of the discharge was likely to cause significant harm to the environment.

Judge Kellar said that had electronic monitoring been available in the area where Mr Lloyd was he would have been sentenced to this.

Judge Kellar said that Mr Lloyd discovered a fault but then continued to knowingly discharge effluent in an area with saturated soils and with ground water springs present. Judge Kellar said Mr Lloyd needed to be held accountable and acknowledge the harm caused to the community, and the sentence needed to deter others from committing a similar offence.

Environment Canterbury Resource Management Director Kim Drummond said the travelling irrigator was found to have been operating in breach of the farm’s consent.

“A travelling irrigator that was running did not have resource consent to discharge effluent to land where it was operating when Environment Canterbury staff visited in 2010.

“It was also discovered that the pipe supplying the irrigator with effluent had been disconnected and was discharging effluent into a grove of trees.

“We hope the sentence handed down by Judge Kellar will act as a deterrent to others and reaffirm the importance of taking all practicable steps to protect the natural environment,” he said.

Source: http://ecan.govt.nz/news-and-notices/news/pages/farmer-fined-discharge-lake-ellesmere.aspx

A Piopio farming couple have been convicted of offences under the Resource Management Act and face fines of over $73,000 for draining an internationally recognised wetland to gain further pasture land and increase farm production.

This media item was current at its release date. The facts or figures it contains may have changed since its original publication.

Source: http://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/Community/Whats-happening/News/Media-releases/Waikato-farmer-faces-73000-fine-for-not-stopping-for-anyone/

High levels of ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, lithium, cyanide, bromide and boron were found around a water discharge point near a Santos coal seam gas operation in the Pilliga forest, near Narrabri.

The state government last night confirmed it would conduct its own investigation and testing of the site.

Water samples gathered by environment groups Friends of the Earth and The Wilderness Society were tested by East West EnviroAg, an independent laboratory in Tamworth that services agricultural and mining clients.

It found samples from Bohena Creek, near a coal seam gas well discharge pipe, contained ammonia at three times the safe level recommended by drinking water guidelines. Upstream samples were uncontaminated.

Santos, which took over the exploratory drilling site from Eastern Star Gas last month, said it had not seen the test results and had doubts about the credibility of the environment groups that collected the samples. It cited a NSW Office of Water study that said ammonia levels in the waterway were normally high, as a result of runoff from nitrate-based fertilisers.

”Discharged water is tested on a monthly basis and all recent results have met NSW requirements,” the company said in a statement.

”Santos is confident it is not in breach of its authority or having any adverse impact on water resources in the area.”

The NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services, which is responsible for regulating most aspects of the coal seam gas industry, yesterday launched its own investigation. The NSW Environment Protection Authority told the Herald last night it had also contacted the department and would follow up on the investigation.

The water being discharged into Bohena Creek is pumped from deep underground during the drilling and gas extraction process, and is released into the creek under licence from the government after being treated by a reverse osmosis plant.

Carmel Flint, a spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth, said she resented the claim from Santos that the high contaminant levels in the water might be from farming.

”We are astonished that Santos are apparently trying to shift the blame to farmers for their own polluting activities,” she said.

”There is no farming along the Bohena Creek where the water was collected – it is located entirely in the Pilliga State Forest … This is Santos’s coal seam gas water, it is their very own pollutants that are flowing in to that creek system.”

The plan inherited by Santos from Eastern Star Gas calls for 1100 gas wells across the Pilliga forest.

The test results were released as the NSW parliamentary inquiry into coal seam gas conducted another hearing in Sydney. It heard from industry executives and engineers that there had been no known incidents of water pollution resulting from coal seam gas operations in the state.

The Environmental Protection Authority is investigating a spill of 20,000 litres of a weak ammonium nitrate solution, which overflowed from a storage tank on Wednesday afternoon. The company blamed the leak on a computer that failed to shut down the plant.

One day earlier, the EPA allowed the company to reopen part of the plant responsible for an ammonia chemical leak last month, but that start-up has been delayed after the latest incident.

Orica’s Kooragang Island site manager, Sean Winstone, said the company intended to go ahead with the start-up and that its own investigation had found Wednesday’s spill was the result of an isolated computer failure.

The Environmental Defender’s Office, working on behalf of a group called the Stockton Community Action Group, wrote to Ms Parker yesterday urging her to use her special powers to stop the plant from reopening until a parliamentary inquiry into the August 8 leak and a prosecution by the government are complete.

In its letter, the EDO said the residents group wanted the plant closed permanently.

The Herald has learnt the company is being prosecuted for a similar spill, that time of nitric acid, on October 19 last year.

The union representing Orica workers, many of whom live in Stockton and neighbouring suburbs, want the plant to reopen to preserve their livelihoods.

The Australian Workers Union’s John Boyd said employees had been paid during the shutdown but were keen to return to work. ”It would be a great relief for them to get back to normal,” he said.

Orica employs about 170 permanent staff and up to 200 contractors at the plant.

A government prevention notice remains in place for the part of the complex responsible for the August 8 leak of hexavalent chromium, which is the subject of ongoing safety tests.

An EPA spokeswoman said it could require Orica to take further action depending on the result of a mandatory environmental audit ordered after the August leak.

A spokeswoman for Ms Parker said the Start-Up Committee was the appropriate forum to consider restart operations.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/residents-want-orica-plant-shut-for-good-20111208-1oldf.html

Water and wastewater quality, and stormwater were key issues for discussion for Southland District councillors at their meeting on Wednesday.

Councillors discussed draft asset management plans for solid waste, stormwater, water supply and wastewater at their activities performance audit committee meeting. These plans form the basis of the Council’s draft 10-year plan, which will be released for public submission next year. The plans detail how these activities will be managed and funded throughout the upcoming ten year period.

Some of the key issues highlighted and discussed at the meetings related to future monitoring and potential improvement costs on a number of stormwater schemes across the district.

Water and waste asset manager Ian Evans said the cost of stormwater consents and the ongoing monitoring of them could potentially be in the region of $4000 a year, however this would be dependent on the resource consent conditions being finalised with Environment Southland.

Other issues raised with councillors included the probability that Council was unlikely to receive further subsidy funding for upgrades to meet tighter drinking water quality and environmental standards, and the specific challenges associated with meeting these.

Mayor Frana Cardno said she had heard discussions at Government level of increasing monitoring requirements and that will mean increasing costs as well.

Mr Evans said he was aware that the possible introduction of new national standards could have cost implications but as these were largely unknown at this stage they hadn’t been factored into the plans.

Staff stay well informed on changes to technologies which could have benefits for Council schemes, or even private developments. Council was well represented at the recent Water New Zealand annual conference which is an excellent arena for keeping up to date with new ideas and innovations, and these will always be considered when looking to improve the way these activities operate.

Roading and water structure plans were also discussed at the meeting.

The decision follows action by a local man Milan Ruka, who bought a boat and camera and began filming the pollution of waterways.

The Regional Council has said there is little it can do, despite pictures of dead cows, cattle grazing on unfenced river banks and stock drinking from streams.

However, Whangarei deputy mayor Phil Halse says his council leases riparian land to farmers in the Hikurangi drainage area and it has a reponsibility to look after it.

Mr Halse says the council will make it a condition of its leases that farmers must fence off the rivers.

He says if they no longer want to lease the land, the council will fence it off from their farms.

Mr Ruka says the council’s decision is commendable but says there are large reaches of the river outside council control.

He told Morning Report people have been in contact from all over New Zealand to ask how to help in his crusade.

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/93327/council-to-act-on-cow-pollution-of-rivers