Environmental complaints keep West Coast Regional Council busy

An aerial view of the Taylorville Resource Park at Coal Creek near Greymouth, which continues to attract smell complaints.

Taylorville Resource Park has again featured in smell complaints to the West Coast Regional Council.

Between April and June the council verified two complaints of “objectionable odour” from the site, the council’s April to June 2024 Compliance Monitoring Quarterly Report reveals.

Overall council dealt with 31 environmental complaints across the region in the period.

The council made 89 site visits to monitor existing resource consents or in response to complaints.

In total, the council found 12 “non-compliant” sites during the period.

The first Coal Creek complaint, of an objectionable odour, was indeed found to be “objectionable outside of the boundary”.

The incident was passed to the Environmental Protection Authority, which has the site under watch.

A second objectionable odour complaint relating to Coal Creek was verified in person by council staff, West Coast Regional Council compliance team leader Chris Barnes said.

They found a strong odour outside and went into the landfill site “to identify the source”.

The council fielded another three complaints about the Coal Creek site in the period — but the smell was considered either not objectionable or could not be detected by compliance staff on the ground.

A fuel spill incident at Westport’s fishing port last month remains under active investigation, Barnes’ report said.

This came after an after-hours notification to the council of diesel fuel spilled into the inner harbour.

The authorities deployed booms and mopped up about 2000 litres of fuel.

Council officers also heard of an oil spill on the Blaketown Lagoon in Greymouth.

It was traced back to residual oil from the Greymouth stormwater system.

“The oil dissipated quickly and no ongoing source was found,” Barnes said.

High seas exposed an old sawmill site at Hannahs Clearing near Haast.

Barnes said the landowner was now developing a plan to remove rubbish from the site exposed by the sea.

At Awatuna, 15km north of Hokitika, the council was alerted to an illegal beach access road cut into the foreshore down to the mean high water level.

It was unable to trace who was responsible for disturbing what is part of the identified Coastal Hazard Area for Westland.

A large amount of gravel illegally taken from St Kilda Beach on the lower Grey River was also investigated.

“A compliance inspection revealed a gravel extraction site lacking proper reclamation procedures,” Barnes said.

“A significant extraction pit remained visible, and efforts to identify the responsible party were unsuccessful.”

Barnes said high E.coli levels found in the Oparara River near Karamea were picked up during a routine compliance inspection.

The matter, including any link to dairy farming, was yet to be settled.

The remaining four “non-compliances” were for gold mining.

Sediment-laden water flowing into an old dredge pond at Kaniere near Hokitika is still awaiting action by the council.

It also heard of sediment-laden water flowing into Waimea Creek at Stafford, northeast of Hokitika.

At the Stafford site, compliance staff discovered untreated water discharging from a mine water treatment pond into a creek.

Sampling of that water revealed “a violation of the permitted operating conditions”.

At nearby Chesterfield, a routine site inspection by the council discovered a dammed creek, which is still being investigated.

A query about an apparent change to longer operating hours at a Hokitika gold mine sparked a council visit.

Staff found the site lacked a valid noise and operational hour permit from the Westland District Council and further investigations were under way.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.