Marr v Bar of Plenty Regional Council

COURT OR TRIBUNAL

Environment Court of New Zealand

DATE FILED (OR FIRST HEARING DATE)

19/05/2010

LITIGATION TYPE

Project Approval - Adaptation

SUBJECT MATTER

Water

REVIEW TYPE

Merits review

SUMMARY

(Lexis Catchwords & Digest)

Maori legal issues — Natural resources — Resource consent — Discharges to water and air

Appeal against decision of respondent council on grant of resource consents. Appellants appealed against grant of certain resource consents to owners and operators of mill comprised of pulp mill and paper mill. Mill required resource consent to take and use water from river needed in processes, and to discharge treated wastewater, stormwater, and landfill leachate back into river. In addition, pulp mill required resource consent to discharge contaminants to air that arose from processes. Appellants challenged (NZ) Water Consent 65722 (water consent) and (NZ) Air Consent 65725 (air consent). Claimed concerns over cultural values, Treaty issues and recreational values attached to river. Appeal dismissed.

At [16] “The detail of the case and position of the appellants will be discussed below, but in summary, Messers Marr are seeking that the Court uphold their appeal by granting Water Consent 65722 but reducing the 25 year term to 10 years with more stringent monitoring conditions attached. In respect of the conditions, Mr Tipene Marr, as spokesperson for Nga Uri o Ngati Rangitihi told us that “our submissions are all about wanting the river back, in a clean and healthy condition, and how that can be achieved by the polluters and how long it should take the companies to do this.” The conditions he wanted attached to the consents, include the gathering of information on the long term strategic plans for the Tasman Mill companies with regard to climate change and changes in the river water flow and surrounding land use over the next 25 to 35 years. He also sought, a condition that annual audits be made of all “incoming chemicals, materials etc” and then “audits of what goes out as waste to landfill, oxidation ponds etc.” If we adopted his suggested reduced time period for the consent, with the associated conditions designed to mitigate the effects of the JV discharges on the river, he was convinced that the wairua (“spirit”) and mauri (“life force”) of the river would be restored and tangata whenua would be able to safely swim, undertake a range of recreational activities and fish in the river.”

CASE DOCUMENTS

Marr v Bar of Plenty Regional Council [2010] NZEnvC 347