A $20 million residential subdivision planned at the southern gateway to Taupo will be built on a disused council landfill and sheep dip, containing contaminants including arsenic.
Taupo district councillor Bernhard Chrustowski presented evidence at a resource consent hearing that he said showed the developers had a bad track record in dealing with potentially dangerous sites.
An Environment Court conviction and $5000 fine imposed on a company for discharging excessive lead into the air is a clear message to business that breaches won’t be tolerated, Greater Wellington Regional Council says.
The court yesterday fined Exide Technologies $5000 after the company pleaded guilty to discharging lead into the air from its battery recycling plant in Petone during March, April and May this year.
A $10,000 payment towards stream rehabilitation in the Pauatahanui inlet area following the conviction of an earthworks contractor for unauthorised sediment discharge is a positive outcome to the incident, says Greater Wellington.
Goodman Contractors Ltd pleaded guilty to unauthorised sediment discharge from the Silverwood subdivision site in the Pauatahanui stream catchment. The discharge, which occurred earlier this year, resulted in very high sediment levels in an adjoining wetland.
Greater Wellington environmental regulation team leader Natasha Tod welcomed Goodman’s guilty plea and its willingness to put things right.
A property owner and a building contractor have been convicted and each fined $12,500 for carrying out earthworks which led to the collapse of a pipeline carrying the primary water supply for Paihia last year.
The two men have been ordered to pay 90% of the fines to the Far North District Council to offset prosecution costs, and have jointly made reparation to the council of $90,000 to meet the cost of repairing and reinstating the broken water main. The two men were also ordered to pay scale prosecution costs of $425 and court costs of $130 each.
Property owner Richard Quinn and builder Henry Nissen admitted charges brought by the Far North District Council alleging the two men had carried out the earthworks on Quinn’s Moana Rd property at Paihia in June last year without resource and building consents.
A development company, director and landscaper have been fined a total of $40,000 for carrying out what a judge said was “brazen” and “deliberate” unauthorised development work for commercial gain on public conservation land in the Bay of Islands.
The company, Springfield No 1 Ltd, director Trevor Love and landscaper Chris McSweeney admitted offences under the 1987 Conservation Act when they appeared in the Whangarei District Court.
The offences involved interfering with natural and historic features, and removing soil from a conservation area on the Purerua Peninsula without consent or authority.
Environment Waikato is seeking an enforcement order to rehabilitate a protected Hauraki wetland after more than 30 hectares of vegetation was destroyed there.
The council alleges a Piako man used a bulldozer and roller crusher to clear more than 30 hectares of vegetation from the Kopuatai peat dome between April and May this year.
Rodney District Council has successfully prosecuted a Huapai man who built a large shed-type barn without getting a building consent and who then failed to comply with a notice to fix the illegal works once they were discovered.
The court ruled that 90 per cent of the $3500 fine should be paid to the council.
The North Shore Court heard recently that the size of the new building, which was being built over an existing small shed, was substantially bigger than the original and required a building consent.
When the matter was brought to the man’s attention he failed to stop building and was issued with a Notice To Fix.
The prosecutions were brought under the Building Act 2004. The man was fined $1500 for the failure to obtain a Building Consent and $2000 for failure to comply with a Notice To Fix.
The judge noted that, had the man “simply stopped when he was told to and put things right, he may not have been in Court at all”