‘Polluting fat cats protected ’

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33626, 30 August 1974, Page 1

‘Polluting fat cats protected ’

The Christchurch Drainage Board should try to stop providing an umbrella of protection for the “fat cats” that were polluting the Heathcote River, said Or J. M. McKenzie, at a meeting of the Heathcote County Council last evening.

He was commenting on what he described as “a most irresponsible report” to the recent meeting of the board, which decided to prosecute the Railways Department and the council.

Cr McKenzie asked the chairman (Mr J. Somers) whether the council had received a summons. Told that it had not. Cr McKenzie said the question, then, was not sub judice and the discussion could be reported. “Blatant lie'’ Cr McKenzie said it was a blatant lie for the board to claim that it had taken 12 months to extract a reply from the council. “And it is a blatant lie to say we discharged oil down a drain,” he said.

He said the board’s “fat cats” were tipping pollution into the Heathcote. An industry had been named to the board, an engineering firm, which had been caught discharging oil, but there was no mention of the board’s prosecuting the firm. “Yet they are going to prosecute the Railways and the council,” said Cr McKenzie. “Heathcote will not be bluffed by people threatening to prosecute us. This is an unfriendly act.

“We should demand a meeting with the board, which should prosecute everybody found polluting the river instead of looking after the fat. cats who are doing it wilfully. Pollution comes from industry. You’ve only got to look at the Heathcote to see where the pollution comes from.” Drum bunged Mr Somers said he had had a meeting with board officials, and two opposing views had been expressed. He had assured the board that the council would fix any-

thing, but what was there to fix?

The County Engineer (Mr F. K. Stone), who also had! a meeting with board officials, detailed discussions 1 between a board inspector and employees, and said there; was no question of oil being! spilled from a drum, as it I was bunged. If the board presented the council, said Mr Stone, the council should defend the charge. The only oil that could have been lost world have been that on the lip of the barrel. ! “The Heathcote below our I boundary is an open sewer (that should not be tolerated anywhere,” said Cr R. H. T. Thompson. “The board’s inspector seems to have assumed what happened.”

Meeting “If we were wilfully polluting, we should be taken to task,” said Cr McKenzie, “but on facts, not hearsay.” It was quite wrong for the board to claim that oil had come from the drum, said Cr E. L. Tyndall.

“That’s right,” said Mr Somers. “No oil came from the drum, and it was not raining, so oil could not have come from the lip.” On Cr Tymdall’s motion, the council decided to ask for a meeting with the board.