Photo: Waikato Regional Council
Puke Coal Limited and its director Kenneth John Campbell have been convicted and fined for a Waikato landfill fire which burned for nearly a year.
Judge Melinda Dickey convicted both on four charges of discharging contaminants into the air, using land illegally and breaches of abatement notices.
They were fined $85,000 dollars each.
In her sentence indication, the judge noted it was important that the defendants were held accountable for the harm done to the environment and therefore the community.
Waikato Regional Council said the communities of Pukemiro, Glen Afton and Rotowaro were especially affected.
Regional Compliance Manager Patrick Lynch said those communities had suffered varying degrees of smoke and objectionable odour from 16 August 2020 until 11 August 2021.
He described pregnant and breast-feeding women having to leave the area, while other residents slept in their cars or felt imprisoned in their homes due to the effects of the fire.
"The smell was variously described as burning plastic, burning rubber, chemicals and sulphur, and we had complaints about coughing, sore throats, skin rash, sore eyes and headaches."
In total, the council received 518 complaints from 45 people representing 34 households.
"Another aggravating factor was that people were suffering these effects in their private home," said Lynch.
The council was first made aware of the fire, which was large and within the landfill, on 16 August 2020.
At the time, PCL was operating a construction and demolition landfill at the 275-hectare Puke Coal site, but it was also receiving unconsented waste, including plastic and synthetic waste from mussel farms and household mixed plastics, paper and cardboard.
The fire was initially controlled by Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) but continued to burn underground, leading to complaints about the smell from the neighbouring communities.
In response to the complaints, and a lack of meaningful control of the fire by PCL, which continued to operate onsite, the council set up an incident management team coordinated by Waikato Civil Defence.
The team included representation from Waikato Regional Council, Waikato District Council, FENZ, Waikato District Health Board and Waikato-Tainui, all working together to understand and mitigate the risks to the community.
As a preliminary public health assessment indicated potential for increased levels of dioxin in the environment, a welfare response team was despatched door-to-door in the community, within three kilometres of the site, to issue a precautionary health notice advising pregnant and breastfeeding women to seek accommodation outside the affected area.
The council issued abatement notices to PCL to cease unlawful discharge of contaminants to air from the fire; to cease the discharge of contaminants to land, and to remove plastic waste and other prohibited materials from the landfill.
A search warrant, executed for over two days in December 2020, had to be abandoned due to concerns about visible smoke plumes and charring across the landfill, and high readings of hydrogen sulphide.
"There were a lot of people really concerned about their health, and it seemed to them as though there was no end in sight," says Lynch.
The landfill and surrounding site were purchased in August 2021 and is now operated by Auckland based company Green Gorilla as a consented construction and demolition waste facility.
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