19 Mar 2010
A large forest management consultancy, PF Olsen Limited, was this week fined $80,000 in the Tauranga District Court, for two offences under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA).
Both charges relate to the same event: the collapse of several piles of logging debris in the Waiotahe Forest near Opotiki, during an intense localised rainstorm that fell from 15 – 17 April 2008. The collapse of these piles released larges amount of sediment and logging debris into nearby valleys and streams, causing significant effects to several waterways.
In sentencing, Judge Jeff Smith said PF Olsen Limited was well aware of its responsibilities and obligations under the RMA and that its staff were working in an area that was “extremely fragile, deeply incised and that they were experienced enough to know that slips here were inevitable”.
“The slips caused significant damage to the environment at the time. I accept that it is relatively stable at the moment but there will be an intermittent impact on the environment over the next decade,” he said.
During sentencing submissions PF Olsen stated it had moved quickly following the slips to clear debris from the stream and that subsequent monitoring had confirmed that the stream was now running clear and native aquatic life had returned to normal for streams emerging from forest areas in the region.
PF Olsen further submitted that it was strongly committed to protecting the environment during harvesting operations and since the incident had boosted both staff capability and training of staff and engineering contractors in an attempt to avoid a repeat incident of a similar nature.
In determining the fine amounts, Judge Smith took into account the company’s guilty pleas and the $250,000 worth of remedial work that PF Olsen Limited had carried out since the breaches, and that it had also carried out a major review of its management processes when dealing with high risk sites, such as those present at Waiotahe. He did however note that through an enforcement order “this court would have required the remedial work to be carried out anyway”.
Environment Bay of Plenty Chairman John Cronin said the regional council does not take the decision to prosecute lightly. “In this case, we decided to take the path of prosecution against PF Olsen because of the seriousness of the offences,” he said.
“This was a serious issue and the fine amount appropriately reflects the seriousness of the crime. We hope that the prosecution and subsequent fines will act as a deterrent to other companies. When a company receives a resource consent then that is their contract with the community to care for our environment and mismanagement such as this case is not acceptable – it is pleasing to see that the court agrees with this view.”
Environment Bay of Plenty is continuing to work closely with forestry organisations to ensure they are aware of their responsibilities and take a proactive approach to addressing them. A technical liaison group has been established with forestry representatives to support this.
Following the sentencing, PF Olsen chief executive officer Peter Clark commented:
“This incident occurred on some of the steepest and most erodible country in the world. While forests do a great job at minimising erosion during a 25 – 30 year growing phase, unfortunately the steep slopes are exposed during the harvesting phase until a new crop of trees gets established – usually a period of five or six years. In this case the slips occurred during a 1 in 20 year high intensity localised rainfall event. We recognise that the building of roads and skids required to carry out harvesting exacerbates the risk and that special skills and care are required to cope with such storms. Fortunately in this case no long-term environmental harm was done.”
Clark said he “was pleased that EBOP was now engaged with the forest industry to explain its expectations around harvesting activity sediment controls and looks forward to on-going consultation.” He also said he hoped that this prosecution would not put investors off planting trees on steep erodible hill country in the Bay of Plenty and elsewhere.
New Zealand needs more trees on such land, not only for soil protection but also to help offset carbon emissions from other sectors if we are to improve our national carbon account balance.
Source: EBOP and PF Olsen media releases
