COMMUNITIES FLOORED BY STENCH OF 'ENVIRONMENTAL' PROCESSING SYSTEMS
Residents in Auckland and Christchurch say council-endorsed environmental waste facilities are getting up their noses, making people feel sick and driving property values down.
In the North Waikato township of Tuakau, the privately owned Envirofert Ltd facility on River/Geraghtys Road turns big city food waste into compost, sending clouds of foul-smelling gases wafting across Tuakau, depending on the wind direction on any given day.
In Christchurch the gently-named "Living Earth" composting plant in Bromley, a public-private partnership between the Christchurch City Council and Beijing Capital, is gassing an estimated 25,000 residents unfortunate enough to live in the wind-shadow of the environmental plant.
In both cases, residents say it's the tip of the iceberg now starting to emerge all over the country and threatening our clean, green image as locals and tourists get a whiff of the real cost of recycling waste.
"Gollum's buttocks"
"If New Zealand is Middle Earth," says Tuakau resident Lou Dromgool, "then Envirofert Ltd is Gollum's buttocks! Seriously, if Weta Workshops could bottle this gas and figure out how to get it into cinemas, you'd have the makings of a 'smell-o-vision' horror movie."
Dromgool has good reason to be cynical. The Envirofert plant was given planning permission to build on the boundary of existing housing, and it's been stinking residents out of their homes for years.
"There are days it's so bad that even the cat won't go outside," exclaims Dromgool. "The Waikato Regional Council set up an 0800 odour complaints line, but it's like dealing with Basil Fawlty. Nothing gets resolved, absolutely nothing gets resolved."
"I had a meeting with the Waikato Regional Council CEO and his officials. The councils response to me at this meeting was that I should take the matter to the Ombudsman office and Environment Court. They were not interested in trying to sort this problem out, just saying 'keep phoning the 0800 number for odour complaints'. I have done this for years and nothing gets done."
"Not NIMBYs"
Down at Bromley in Christchurch, community spokesman Geoffrey King says Cantabrians are experiencing the same treatment.
"We believe it affects 25,000 residents who live in the wind-shadows and the fumes can be smelt approximately 5 kilometres away. The plant is within the city boundary and is 500 metres from the nearest residential zone.The local school has had to close due to the odours."
King says it's much bigger than a 'NIMBY' (not in my backyard or next it might be you) issue.
"No one is against environmental processing plants that recycle waste, but we have town planning laws for a reason. New Zealanders invest their life savings in their homes, and councils should not have the right to put industrial facilities so close to residential properties. If you're a big Chinese corporation wanting to make a bit of money, then go and buy a piece of land beyond the city fringes that's big enough to absorb your waste vapours without affecting the lives of thousands of families with kids."
"No business activity should impinge on someone's quality of life and we have the right to enjoy going about normal activities in our houses without having to restrict outdoor activities and keep doors and windows closed especially in the hot summer months."
"We are prisoners in our own homes that we have worked damned hard to get."
"The residents have a liaison group meeting with the Christchurch City Council owner's, Environment Canterbury (ECAN) regulator and Beijing Capital (Living Earth/Waste Management) the operator, every 3 months. Nothing is achieved, there are more arguments about procedure and the circus just goes round and round in ever increasing circles. If our opponents are losing the battle they change the rules. We are on a hiding to nothing at the moment and the stress is taking it's toll on some residents," says Geoffrey King.
"Both plants, Envirofert and Living Earth commenced in 2009 taking food waste to make into compost, we are soon to go into our 8th year of this living hell. The Resource Consent conditions issued by councils state 'NO ODOUR BEYOND THE BOUNDARY'. Waikato Regional Council that monitor Envirofert are 1 hour away from Tuakau and are not always available to assess odours.
As affected communities began to network using social media and blogs, they found other communities around New Zealand facing similar issues.
"If you are an ordinary resident or private business wanting to chop down a tree or stick up an advertising hoarding, the full weight of the Resource Management Act is brought down on you," says Tuakau's Lou Dromgool. "But if you go to the local council and wrap yourself up in 'green', the officials fall over themselves to let you break every rule in the book and devalue properties by tens of thousands of dollars in the process."
Te Maunga in Tauranga, Uriti in Taranaki, Te Mata Mushrooms in Havelock North, these are just some of the odorous facilities that have been put in the wrong places, like Envirofert and Living Earth. Make the developer purchase properties with bigger buffers. Do not let the town planners change the rules many years later and let these odour producing facilities encroach onto private land that have no say in the council's decisions. Why should ordinary New Zealanders have to subsidise greedy developers?
"Last time I looked, we the people paid property rates, and the councils are employed by us to look after our interests. It's time they remembered who pays their wages. They work for us, not the other way around."
I offered my opponents a deal:
"if they stop telling lies about me,
I will stop telling the truth about them".
~Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech,1952.....
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