'Insidious effect': Firm and its director fined $16,500 for third environmental offence

Thursday, 19 July 2018

A file photo of a long-finned eel, which are found in the Kakanui River and its tributaries.

It's home to long-finned eels and the longjaw galaxiid, but that didn't stop a contractor digging up 500 metres of a North Otago waterway.

MFS Ventures Ltd and its director, Gregory Keith Nelson, pleaded guilty to a charge of breaching the Resource Management Act (RMA) by disturbing the bed of a tributary of the Kakanui River.

The Hakataramea Valley, which the Hakataramea River runs through.

Both were convicted and each fined $8250, plus court costs at a hearing held in the Dunedin District Court last week.

The firm and Nelson have a history of environmental breaches. In 2011 they were convicted of discharging dairy effluent.

And last year they pleaded guilty to two charges each for illegally disturbing the bed of Sisters Creek in Canterbury and discharging sediment into the Hakataramea River.

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A judgment released by Judge Brian Dwyer on Thursday said the farm was used to graze dairy cattle, and on April 12, 2017 a contractor was employed to excavate an unnamed tributary of the Kakanui River.

A day later the Otago Regional Council received a complaint that a digger was operating in the tributary.

An enforcement officer found 500m of the tributary had been excavated.

The director advised the work was to remove material accumulated as a result of earlier storm events.

Removing material accumulated after storm events is allowed on the condition alluvium is not removed. But the court heard that cobble bed alluvium was removed, and so required resource consent.

Judge Dwyer noted photographs showed weeds and vegetation were also removed.

The tributary was an artificial water course, but 'has quite high in-stream ecological values'. Trouts, eels and bullies have all been caught in it.

The Kakanui River and its tributaries are a habitat for a 'significant population of long finned eels' and the longjaw galaxiid.

Photographs of the work showed a tributary suffered negative ecological impacts due to the stream clearance operations.

Judge Dwyer said although the effects were temporary, they persisted until the waterway was restored.

While the defendants' counsel argued that her clients thought they were doing permitted work, anything 'involving a length of stream something like 500m, is likely to attract the attention of the regional council', Judge Dwyer said.

All that was needed was a call to the council, he said.

'I accept that this is not the worst case of offending by any stretch of imagination but I make the point it is not trivial offending either.'

The cumulative nature of such incidents had an 'insidious effect' on waterway quality, he said.

Last year's case was prompted by an Environment Canterbury compliance officer's site visit in late 2016, who saw extensive works, including the use of heavy machinery to excavate, scrape, grade and clear the Sisters Creek riverbed. No resource consent had been sought.

The total fine for disturbing the bed of Sisters Creek was $15,000 and the total fine for the discharge of sediment into the Hakataramea River was $7000. The fines were split evenly between MFS Ventures Ltd and Nelson.