The Ruapehu skifield spill: a community's anger

Thursday, 21 May 2015

Almost two years after diesel spilled from a tank on Turoa skifield, entering a stormwater drain feeding the Makotuku River catchment and poisoning the water supply in the central North Island town of Raetihi, Viv Hoeta remains angry.

The company responsible, skifield operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts (RAL), was fined $300,000 after pleading guilty to charges brought by Horizons Regional Council and WorkSafe NZ, but Hoeta wanted individuals held accountable.

So the teacher and mother of three marched into the Ohakune police station, the nearest to Turoa, and laid a formal complaint.

'I'm making a stand for myself, for my family and the community,' she says.

For five days, Raetihi people could have been drinking diesel-tainted water because no-one had notified authorities.

When the alarm was finally raised, the town's drinking water supply was cut off for 21 days. Daily trips to the water tanker, showering at emergency communal facilities and filling toilets by jerry cans became the norm for the town's 1000 residents.

The clean-up bill came to more than $1m and even today the Makotuku's water quality is being monitored 24/7 by a hydrocarbon sensor.

Hoeta, a descendant of Ngati Uenuku-Uenukumanawawiri and Ngati Rangi, says: 'To find out they had already been told and did nothing, I was furious. How could it happen?'

Her co-complainant Peter Kearney, a builder and artist, believes there was negligence and individuals should be charged.

'You can't weasel your way out of it…within 24 hours everyone should have been notified and action could have been taken, it's not hard to pick up a phone.'

Ohakune police confirm they have received a complaint and are investigating. Warren Brookbanks, a law professor at the University of Auckland, says Crimes Act prosecutions might be possible.

A criminal nuisance charge would require proof that the offender knew an unlawful act such as spilling diesel would endanger the public.

'The difficulty would be proving relevant knowledge at the time of the spill, since the test is one of subjective knowledge, not what the person ought to have known.' 

THE SPILL

On the wet and snowy night of Thursday, September 26, 2013, Turoa staff transferred 3000 litres of diesel from a 40,000 litre above-ground storage tank, the start of a chain of events that would end with the poisoning of the Raetihi water supply. 

 A summary of facts presented to court last November revealed that a booster pump continued to operate and went into a 'dead-head state', causing a hose to become detached. The remaining contents of the tank, about 19,000 litres, was pumped into the Tongariro National Park, a World Heritage area.

RAL pleaded guilty to unlawful discharge of a contaminant, failure to maintain the fuel storage system, failure to test an emergency plan every 12 months and failure to notify WorkSafe.

The summary is damning.

It states that as of the Friday morning, RAL was aware that a significant amount of diesel had spilled, an estimated 10,000 litres, staff having seen 'clear indications' around the tank and a strong smell.

They turned off the pump and discovered the detached hose. By Saturday, they revised the volume of spilt diesel to 19,000 litres, the summary said.

It made special mention of operations manager Chris Thrupp, who said in an affadavit he was advised at 7.30am on the Friday about the hose. He noticed a wet strip down the side of the tank, but didn't smell diesel or see signs on the ground. 

Judge Brian Dwyer said Thrupp was advised that dip-stick readings showed about 15,000 litres of diesel was missing.

'Apparently that did not ring any alarm bells as the reconciliation had been out in the past.' the judge said.

 Thrupp didn't investigate further, the judge said. On the Monday, Thrupp was told another dip reading confirmed the diesel was missing, and a maintenance manager told him he'd seen some staining on the ground.

There was still no follow-up, and the next day Thrupp flew to Queenstown on business.

According to the summary, RAL ordered a new delivery of diesel to replace the lost fuel even before the relevant agencies were notified. No regular maintenance inspections had been carried out by qualified contractors since 2008.

'GUTTED'

 Thrupp has never spoken publicly about the spill until now. In an interview, he accused Horizons of 'making up' aspects of the summary.

He is adamant he had no idea there had been a major spill until the following Wednesday.

Prior to that? 'I was aware that there was a minor event, a problem with the pump.'

This was because there was no evidence of a spill, he says. 'I spent a good deal of time at the site. I scratched away at the dirt. There's a drain that runs right along the site, I knelt down into the drain…no sign of any [diesel]. '

Did he think any fuel had spilled? 'Oh, probably a litre. And that was just the contents of a hose.'

Thrupp says anonymous staff members quoted in the summary as saying management knew about the spill from day one are remembering things that didn't happen. 'Nobody came banging on the door of my office and said 'Chris, I think we've spilled a whole lot of diesel'.'

Thrupp says the first hint that something had gone horribly wrong was a comment on Facebook about diesel being detected in Raetihi's water.

'I thought, 'God, there's an off-chance this could be a link'. I called [the Department of Conservation] and said 'we had an incident a few days before, it could be us, I doubt it, we're 40km away'.'

He felt 'gutted' when it was confirmed. 'I feel completely guilty, ashamed, that I didn't pick it up at the time. I've apologised… but there was no cover-up.'

The hose came off the pump, he says, because it had been installed incorrectly, and that was the focus of a current prosecution against Petroleum Services Ltd, the tank installer.

Thrupp claims Judge Dwyer 'challenged' some of the allegations against him, saying they appeared contrary to other statements.

But Dwyer said of the suggestion Thrupp knew early on how much diesel had  spilled: 'I do not think there are any inconsistencies in that regard needed to be resolved.'

The judge said some of the information in Thrupp's affidavit was disturbing and RAL's response 'totally inadequate. The combination of a running pump, an empty diesel tank and a blown hose which was known to the staff member on September 27 obviously required immediate and vigorous investigation'.

PAY RISE

RAL's stuff-up hasn't hurt Thrupp's career. Around the time of the spill he was promoted to operations manager for both Whakapapa and Turoa and the 2014 annual reports shows his pay band has increased by $20,000.

Isn't a pay rise a bad look? 'You could read it that way,' says Dave Mazey, RAL's chief executive. 'An error of judgment occurred, that doesn't mean he's not the best person for taking on additional responsibility.'

Mazey says the company admitted its failures and offered to pay the community's costs. 'I don't disagree one iota that questions should have been asked harder. The key thing for me that turned it from being something malicious into an error of judgment, was in [staff] minds the lack of evidence of that volume of diesel spilling over the ground.'

Documentary maker Julian Arahanga speaks to RAL chief Dave Mazey after sentencing. Photo: Liz Brooker

One of Raetihi's most famous sons, Julian Arahanga, who played Nig in the movie Once Were Warriors, has investigated the Turoa spill for a documentary on the state of Volcanic Plateau rivers. 'That spill shouldn't have happened. Safety mechanisms in place to capture any spill were non-existent,' he claims.

It had a big impact on Raetihi, he says. 'Pretty much all of the piping for the town became lined with diesel residue, and that went into people's taps, their plumbing, their hot water cylinders. Chemicals had to be pushed through the whole town reticulation system.'

Arahanga says RAL's actions need further examination. 'I believe we haven't heard the full truth, maybe through a police investigation we might find out what really went on.' 

For Hoeta, it seems incredible that better fail safes were not in place. 'We have entrusted that taonga to [RAL], surely they would have put enough provisions in place to ensure that they look after that gift.'

A HISTORY OF SPILLS

When Ruapehu Alpine Lifts appeared for sentencing last year, the court was told it had no previous record of environmental offending. That may be strictly true, but using the Official Information Act, Fairfax has uncovered details about other spills on Whakapapa and Turoa.

The information is contained in correspondence between RAL and the Department of Conservation. Horizons Regional Council and the Ruapehu District Council say they have no records for any incidents other than the 2013 spill.

It's revealed in the documents that in April, 2007, during the construction of the High Noon Express chairlift on Turoa, an unknown quantity of diesel spilled.

Nicola Patrick, DoC's Ruapehu Area Manager, emailed operations manager Chris Thrupp saying she was disappointed a colleague had only heard about the spill through a contractor. 'I believe that DoC and RAL have the sort of relationship where if something goes wrong, we're told about it promptly,' she wrote. 'The spill of a chemical into a waterway in the National Park should have triggered an instant call.'

Thrupp wrote back: 'I do not believe there was any attempt to cover this up, the contractor did not realise he had left the siphon running until the evening. I was on the radio attempting to find out what had happened…when [the DOC officer] called me with a report that hundreds of litres of fuel had been spilt.'

Thrupp says he can only remember 'a couple' of spills over the years. He understands the threshold for alerting Horizons is if the spill leaves the property.

While Horizons has no specific reporting requirements for contamination incidents, a spokesperson says: 'It is generally well understood that in the event of a spill of this magnitude the appropriate authorities are contacted immediately'. new paragraph added

The DOC papers show that in 2000, about 600 litres of diesel spilled from an underground tank at the West Ridge chairlift on Whakapapa, but was not discovered until after the snow melted.

In 1994, about 200 litres of diesel spilled in a carpark at Whakapapa during a fuel transfer operation. RAL assured DoC it was re-evaluating fuel storage and handling systems.

In 1993, an unknown quantity of diesel spilled at the Iwikau workshop on Whakapapa and a sewage spill remained undetected at Knoll Ridge for several weeks.

Dave Mazey, RAL's chief executive, says in his 30 years in the job he can only recall one other spill, in the 90s. 'Other than a minor litre here or there that comes from someone overfilling a groomer, I know of no others.' He believes RAL has a 'really good record, certainly my discussions with DOC and Horizons never said different.'

Fuel storage systems were replaced with latest technology in the mid 2000s, he says, and again after the 2013 spill. But Barry Strong, who was the DOC manager who oversaw RAL compliance from 2005 until he left in 2010, says RAL's procedures 'aren't anything near best practice'.

Now working in Australia, Strong remembers the installation of the tank which leaked in 2013. 'We talked about spill contingency planning…they assured us that they would be up to that. Obviously they weren't.'

At one point, Strong says, staff in a workshop at Whakapapa 'decided that it was a good idea' to pour waste oil and diesel into an interceptor which flowed down a bank. 'I don't think it actually got to the stream…it was a prime example of a lack of understanding in how to manage these sorts of materials to prevent pollution to the environment.'