Waikato Regional Council is defending its response to a diesel spill on Waikato River yesterday – after staff spent six hours deploying booms on the river.

Members of the public noticed an oily slick spilling from a stormwater drain near the St Andrews Golf Course in Hamilton about 8.15am.

The stormwater system which discharges into the river near St Andrews collects water from much of Te Rapa and Avalon Dr catchment.

Authorities said the slick had been identified as a hydrocarbon, most likely diesel.

It is the fourth time in seven months a diesel-like liquid has been discharged into the river from the stormwater outlet.

Regional Council senior complaint response officer Blair Campbell said staff assessed the spill within 30 minutes of being alerted, but initially decided against deploying absorbent booms.

Staff reassessed the spill after midday and found the spill volume had increased.

“In the morning the flow wasn’t heavy but we’ve continued to monitor it and it appeared to get worse. We decided the prudent thing would be to set up the booms,” Mr Campbell said.

Absorbent booms were deployed about 2pm.

The spill created a 10-metre wide rainbow sheen across the river and gave off a pungent smell. The slick also forced a large flock of ducks from the river.

Staff monitored the slick downstream and found it broke up quite quickly less than one kilometre from the drain outlet.

Arcus St resident Wendy Southall, whose property overlooks the river, said yesterday’s spill was the third in recent memory and questioned the regional council’s response to the slick. (Read on …)

Former Hokitika man Barry Foster has been fined $34,000 in the Christchurch District Court after unlawfully discharging sediment from a gold mining operation at Kawhaka, near Arahura, and breaching a West Coast Regional Council abatement notice.

The prosecution followed the successful conviction last year of goldminer David Marsh, who was fined $28,000.

Foster, who lives in Christchurch, holds the consent.

The charges arose from a visit to the mining site on March 30, 2010, when regional council staff found the miner was unlawfully discharging sediment into Stoney Creek, a subsidiary of Fox Creek. (Read on …)

A farming partnership in Canterbury has been fined $9500 for taking water illegally for irrigation.

Brent and Barry Austin, who own Cambria Farms Ltd, in Ashburton, pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching conditions of their resource consent to take ground water.

This occurred on October 30 and between October 31 and November 8 last year, when irrigation consent restrictions were in place.

Judge Jon Jackson said although there was a level of negligence or carelessness it was not tantamount to gross negligence or wilfulness.

Mitigating factors included the company’s immediate co-operation with the regional council once the offending came to light and the remorse of its directors. (Read on …)

Restaurant Brands has been fined $15,000 for a spill of oil and fats from one of its Dunedin’s fast food outlets, KFC, into Kaikorai Stream, which caused the death of two ducks.

It was the first conviction under the Resource Management Act for the company, which has 88 KFC, Starbucks and Pizza Hut outlets throughout the country.

On October 8 last year, the grease trap at KFC’s Kaikorai Valley outlet discharged fats and oils into the car park. These drained to a sump, then flowed into a gutter and into the Kaikorai Stream, the Dunedin District Court heard yesterday (WED). (Read on …)

Mark Allen Stanaway and his wife Kylie Wendy Stanaway were sentenced recently in Whangarei after they had earlier pleaded guilty to a combined total of 16 charges.

Each had faced eight separate charges relating to dairy effluent discharges, a silage leachate discharge and breaching an abatement notice.

In a reserved decision delivered recently in Whangarei on his behalf, Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook said the 2009 offending – which took place at the couple’s Wallace Rd, Ruawai property – related to a “multiplicity of discharges and situations” and had been serious. (Read on …)

The new resource use and environmental monitoring committee replaces the environment and regulatory committees, and brings together the councillors from the two committees.

The council’s committee structure came up for review late last year when the regulatory committee recommended that the council remove its power to consider and/or initiate legal proceedings for resource management non-compliance.

The committee sought a review of the terms of reference and scope of activity for the regulatory committee and the potential for amalgamation with the council’s other standing committees. (Read on …)