TRC Bulletin

24 November 2015

Items of interest from today’s meeting of the Taranaki Regional Council’s Consents and Regulatory meeting:

Worth pondering

Farmers must be vigilant and ensure their dairy effluent treatment and disposal systems are up to scratch because any breaches of resource consent conditions are likely to be detected. The Committee was told that early results from the annual round of dairy effluent system inspections show a higher-than-normal non-compliance rate, with 33 falling short out of the 278 inspected so far. Committee members and Council management are concerned about the failure rate and say farmers should always be aware that a very close eye is being kept on system maintenance and operation. Farmers breaching consent conditions are subject to additional monitoring at their own cost. Enforcement action can also be taken.

Industry performance assessed

The petrochemical industry accounted for six of the eight consent monitoring annual reports presented to the Committee, with four covering hydraulic fracturing and two relating to deep-well injection. All six achieved a ranking of high environmental performance in the 2014-2015 year, with no evidence of any adverse environmental effects. Stratford district water supply schemes achieved a ‘good’ ranking and a Stratford metal treatment company was rated ‘improvement required’ because of issues around sediment in stormwater leaving their site. Today’s eight reports take the total to 50 for the 2014-2015 year. More than 200 will be produced. See www.trc.govt.nz/technical-reports/

The lowdown on groundwater

There are times when air just isn’t needed. The Committee was told that the Council’s scientists are using new techniques and pumping equipment that allow groundwater samples to be extracted from aquifers without overly aerating the sample water. This allows for more accurate assessment of levels of dissolved gases and hydrocarbons in groundwater. The Council’s Science Services section has invested in new equipment and training to ensure this latest best practice is followed.

Counting the consents

The Council issued 164 resource consents between 1 July and 16 November, the Committee was told. This compares with 184 in the July-November period last year, and 262 in July-November 2013. While most of the 164 consents issued so far in 2015-16 have been non-notified, applicants have still been required to consult and/or get written approval from 95 third parties, mainly neighbours and iwi or hapu, before formally lodging their applications. See www.trc.govt.nz/resource-consents-issued/

ENDS

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