Council was sentenced this week to a fine of $67,500 for breaching the Resource Management Act 1991 during an incident in April 2023.

The prosecution came about after a systems and operating failure led to untreated wastewater leaking into land and eventually a waterway. Waikato Regional Council prosecuted MPDC for the breach, with MPDC pleading guilty at an Environment Court hearing a year later in Morrinsville District Court.

“We don’t take incidents like this lightly,” commented CEO Don McLeod. “The care and protection of our environment is a core part of Council business, and an incident like this is our worst-case scenario. We sincerely apologise to those who are affected, including local iwi.”

“We completed a thorough investigation to understand the cause of this event, and made changes to the system within a couple of weeks of the event to prevent this occurring again. We’ve also recently implemented a new district-wide SCADA monitoring system, which provides a much higher standard of remote monitoring and alarms.”

The CEO was disappointed with Waikato Regional Council’s decision to prosecute over this matter.

“We always alert Waikato Regional Council of incidents of this nature, no matter how large or small because we want to do the right thing and learn from it.”

“While we accept and respect the decision of the regulatory agency to prosecute, we are disappointed they felt it necessary to do so. We’ve been working hard across the whole district to upgrade our water and wastewater systems to improve environmental outcomes – to the tune of more than $60 million plus over the next five years and approximately $45 million of that at the Matamata Plant over the next few years.” The first contract for this work is soon to be awarded.

“Dealing with a prosecution takes time and money. While the majority of the costs are covered by insurance, the process impacts significantly on staff morale and detracts from the projects we’re already working hard to deliver across our District, which are aimed at substantially improving plant performance for our growing towns and reducing incidents of this nature.”

“Ultimately, we serve the same ratepayers, and we would prefer to work alongside Waikato Regional Council and focus on progressing this critical work, and meeting the standard that Regional Council and the community wants to see.”