Fines totaling $42,000 have been handed down to two Hauraki-based dairy farm owners and a sharemilker in the latest sentencing for dairy effluent offences.

These fines are as a result of prosecutions taken by Environment Waikato following its helicopter monitoring programme in August 2009.

In the first of two similar cases before the Hamilton District Court last week, owner John Pinnell and his sharemilker Stephen Jamieson were fined $16,000 and $10,000 respectively for two offences involving the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent on to land at a Kopu property.

In a second case, owner Mark Millington was also fined $16,000 for four offences involving the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent on to land at a Paeroa property. (Read on …)

Forests NSW is being forced to review its logging practices, after the discovery of a spate of new breaches including logging old-growth rainforests and destroying the habitat of threatened native animals.

The latest damage, at Girard State Forest near Tenterfield, is the fifth time in five months that the state agency has come under investigation.

The NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, which oversees environmental protection licences, is conducting a joint audit with the agency of logging in the region.

The review will examine the regulations under which contractors are employed by Forests NSW, and rules protecting native wildlife, young trees and trees surrounding waterways.

The department has already handed out four penalty notices to the agency this year for breaking logging rules in the nearby Yabbra State Forest. (Read on …)

Three companies found guilty of spilling 10,000 litres of petrol have been ordered to pay the heaviest fine imposed in a regional council case in Auckland.

Petrol Alley Services (GAS), URS New Zealand and Brown Bros (NZ) were found guilty in the Auckland District Court over a fuel leak from a petrol station in Line Rd, Glen Innes.

The companies have been ordered to pay a fine of $160,000, as well as court costs of $80,000.

The court has also demanded an investigation of the fuel which remained in the ground, and the companies could be forced to pay a further $200,000 for a clean-up.

Prosecutor Auckland Regional Council said the charges and fine sent a strong message to large companies to be tighter in their procedures. (Read on …)

Aditya Birla Minerals Ltd’s Mount Gordon copper mine in northwest Queensland has been charged for failing to meet its environmental obligations.

The Queensland government has charged the mine with 19 offences, including one count of failing to improve on site water management and 18 counts of failing to comply with the Environmental Authority and to decrease the risk of environmental harm.

Department of Environment and Resource Management’s acting Director of Litigation Reuben Carlos said Aditya Birla had allegedly failed to meet those requirements within set timeframes. (Read on …)

A Central Queensland man who was contracted to clear endangered remnant vegetation on his neighbour’s property was fined $20,000 yesterday in the Rockhampton Magistrates Court.

Donald Charles Edmistone pleaded guilty before Magistrate John McGrath to clearing native vegetation on a property known as “Orange Grove” at Dingo, 150km west of Rockhampton. No conviction was recorded.

The $20,000 penalty is the biggest fine handed to a contractor (non land owner) under the Integrated Planning Act 1997 and Sustainable Planning Act 2009 for a vegetation clearing offence. (Read on …)

Taupo District Council has been prosecuted for dumping a “puddle of poo” near a playground in Mangakino.

About 30 residents were told at a meeting in the community last night sewage was dumped at the Mangakino Bowling Club pit on September 3, 2008.

Taupo District Council pleaded guilty to the charges laid by Environment Waikato in Tokoroa District Court and will be sentenced later this month.

The judge ordered the councils to hold the restorative justice meeting to work out how the suggested $27,000 fine could be put back into the Mangakino community. (Read on …)