Photo: screenshot
A controversial composting and worm-farming plant in North Taranaki has lost a bid to get its consents reinstated and now faces permanent closure.
The Taranaki Regional Council declined consents in 2021 for Remediation New Zealand's Urutī operation, which has been operating as normal as it fought the decision through the courts.
It appealed the decision to the Environment Court where its faced down the council, Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Mutunga, neighbours of the plant and other interested groups captured under the Urutī Community Parties banner.
The main issue at Urutī is a 20,000-tonne stockpile of oil and gas drilling mud, containing arsenic, hydrocarbons and chemical additives, some of it mixed with unauthorised treated-timber sawdust.
Apart from the stockpile, the court was also investigating the environmental and cultural impacts of chemicals leaking from the site, and offensive odours that neighbours said made them sick.
During the appeal, Remediation NZ argued that water quality was not being adversely affected and, apart from the drilling muds, all waste being brought onto the site was being composted as proposed.
The company argued that reinstating its consents with conditions would allow it properly clean up the drilling waste while continuing to operate.
In his decision, Judge Laurie Newhook said he was not convinced that discharges from the site if would discontinue if consents were reinstated, and the Haehanga Stream and Mimitangiatua River would continue to be adversely affected and the environment more generally.
There were significant information gaps in Remediation NZ's application that the company had not been able to fill as requested, casting doubt on its ability to operate in an environmentally safe way, he said.
"There are uncertainties (including, ironically from Remediation NZ's own expert witnesses) that make us more than merely uncomfortable about granting consent, pointing to unknown risks for the environment.
"This is the biggest factor in the conclusion to decline consent in this case, and stands as a complete reason for refusal, even without our other findings on effects and statutory instrument provisions."
Newhook noted that Remediation NZ had belatedly attempted to engage with Ngāti Mutunga to prepare a Cultural Effects Assessment, but it was unproven how effective this engagement had been, or whether it had positive results.
"We do not consider the company has promoted meaningful relationships and interactions between itself and Ngāti Mutunga. The evidence of Ngāti Mutunga is that the proposed activities will not actively protect the Mimitangiatua Stream catchment, which is of particular significance to them. The proposal is contrary to this important objective."
Newhook was also not in favour of granting temporary consents which the regional council had entertained as temporary fix to allow Remediation to operate while cleaning up the site.
"We dismiss the regional council's and other parties' push for a 'short term exit consent' as essentially not being in scope, not being defined in evidence, and certainly resisted by Remediation NZ on legal and practical grounds. We understand those other parties' wish to see such a consent issued, but it cannot happen."
Newhook said the Resource Management Act would not allow it and noted that the proposal "stumbled well before the need to consider those provisions arose", essentially sealing the fate of Remediation NZ's site.
