Natural Gas Corp. fined $1000

Press, 27 January 1983, Page 10

Natural Gas Corp. fined $1000

PA New Plymouth The Natural Gas Corporation has been fined $lOOO in the District Court at Hawera after admitting a charge relating to the pollution of Kapuni Stream last October. The maximum fine for the offence is $4OOO.

The Corporation was charged with discharging a poisonous substance, unionised ammonia waste, into the stream to such an extent that it caused the waters to become poisonous or injurious ,to fish, on or about October 19. The Hawera Acclimatisation Society’s secretary. Mr John Carlsen, brought the action under the Freshwater Fisheries Regulations. 1951. Counsel for the society, Mr R. Handley, said that the corporation had sprayirrigated a large volume of waste on to pasture near its Kapuni ammonia-urea plant. The waste contained high concentrations of un-ionised ammonia. The spraying was considered necessary to stop the waste from going direct into a gully which led to the stream..

However, the waste ran off the pasture and found its way into the stream.

Measurements taken on October 20 in the stream showed concentrations of un-

ionised ammonia to be 185 times the recommended standard. Levels in the gully were so high that the area had now been called "biologically dead.” Mr Handley said that fish were killed 20km downstream. It was estimated that fish and other aquatic life would take one to two years to re-establish themselves.

For the corporation, Mr S. Williams said that the pollution was the result of an unforeseeable series of events, the consequences of which were not serious. ‘‘There was no intent to pollute the stream, there was no lack of care on the part of the N.G.C.; it was purely and simply an accident," he said. Judge Dalmer accepted there was no intent to discharge waste into the stream. But he doubted whether an angler would agree that the stream concerned was not a fishing area of some repute. The corporation was a responsible organisation which had done its best to contain the problem.

However, the Judge said, the fact that the discharge had occurred had to be marked by a financial penalty.