Illegal earthworks lead to fines totalling $72,500

Contractors and project managers who carried out illegal earthworks for a new subdivision road across largely erosion-prone land at Mangawhai have been fined a total of $72,500.

Contractor McBreen Jenkins was fined $45,000 by the Environment Court sitting in Whangarei and project managers Lands and Survey and one of its directors, Michael John Elrick, were fined $12,500 each.

McBreen Jenkins employee Rob Wilson, who supervised the earthworks at Mangawhai, was fined a total of $2500.

The prosecutions under the Resource Management Act were laid by the Northland Regional Council and involved about 15,000 cubic metres of illegal cut and fill earthworks and sediment discharge.

The work, mostly on land prone to erosion, was undertaken early last year to build about 10km of road at a subdivision at Bream Tail.

The Kaipara District Council had given consent for the subdivision development but approval was also required from the regional council, which requires resource consent for more than 1000 cubic metres of earthwork on erosion-prone land within any 12-month period.

A complaint was made about the work in March last year and a retrospective consent application was lodged two months later.

The court hearing was told there had been little environmental damage as a result of the earthworks but if heavy rain had fallen there could have been serious adverse effects on what had been marketed as a pristine environment.

In their sentencing notes, the two Environment Court judges, Laurie Newhook and B.P. Dwyer, said they considered there was "an extremely sorry saga of fault on the part of all defendants".