Year-long landfill fire results in convictions

A company and director have been convicted and fined a total of $170,000 in relation to a landfill fire that burned for nearly a year, causing nearby residents to suffer from the effects of objectionable odours being emitted from the site.

Judge Melinda Dickey convicted Puke Coal Ltd (PCL) and Kenneth John Campbell, who had active control of the site, on four charges each relating to discharging contaminants into the air, using land illegally and breaches of abatement notices. The company and the director were fined $85,000 each.

Campbell and PCL pleaded guilty three years after Waikato Regional Council filed charges under the Resource Management Act in the Huntly District Court in August 2021.

Regional Compliance Manager Patrick Lynch says the convictions were representative of the impacts on the Pukemiro, Glen Afton and Rotowaro communities, who had suffered varying degrees of smoke and objectionable odour from 16 August 2020 until 11 August 2021.

Mr Lynch says residents spoke of being prisoners in their own home because they couldn’t go outside due to the smell, while others had reported they were sleeping in their cars to get away from it.

“The smell was variously described as burning plastic, burning rubber, chemicals and sulphur, and we had complaints about coughing, sore throats, skin rash, sore eyes and headaches.”

In total, the council received 518 complaints from 45 people representing 34 households.

“Investigating ‘objectionable’ odour can be really challenging, as it is so hard to measure,” says Mr Lynch.

“The term ‘objectionable’ is subjective, but we were confident of meeting legal requirements because the information from the community showed that the odour was meeting thresholds for frequency, intensity, duration and offensiveness.

“Another aggravating factor was that people were suffering these effects in their private home.”  

The council was first made aware of the fire, which was large and within the landfill, on 16 August 2020.

At the time, PCL was operating a construction and demolition landfill at the 275-hectare Puke Coal site, but it was also receiving unconsented waste, including plastic and synthetic waste from mussel farms and household mixed plastics, paper and cardboard.

The fire was initially controlled by Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) but continued to burn underground, leading to complaints about the smell from the neighbouring communities.

In response to the complaints, and a lack of meaningful control of the fire by PCL, which continued to operate onsite, the council set up an incident management team coordinated by Waikato Civil Defence.

The team included representation from Waikato Regional Council, Waikato District Council, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Waikato District Health Board and Waikato-Tainui, all working together to understand and mitigate the risks on the community.

As a preliminary public health assessment indicated potential for increased levels of dioxin in the environment, a welfare response team was despatched door-to-door in the community, within three kilometres of the site, to issue a precautionary health notice advising pregnant and breastfeeding women to seek accommodation outside the affected area.

The council issued abatement notices to PCL to cease unlawful discharge of contaminants to air from the fire; to cease the discharge of contaminants to land, and to remove plastic waste and other prohibited materials from the landfill.

A search warrant, executed for over two days in December 2020, had to be abandoned due to concerns about visible smoke plumes and charring across the landfill, and high readings of hydrogen sulphide.

“There were a lot of people really concerned about their health, and it seemed to them as though there was no end in sight,” says Mr Lynch.

In her sentence indication, the judge noted it was important that the defendants were held accountable for the harm done to the environment and therefore the community.

The landfill and surrounding site were purchased in August 2021 and is now operated by Auckland based company Green Gorilla as a consented construction and demolition waste facility.

Photo: The fire service onsite at Puke Coal’s landfill fire.