By ANNE BESTON
An Environment Court judge has criticised Metrowater for spending more than $30,000 in a long-running legal dispute over the Winstone quarry in Three Kings.
Legal costs incurred by the Auckland City Council-owned water retailer have been called "excessive" by the judge.
The company paid more than $30,000 in fees, including $26,000 legal expenses, to fight an action by a community group opposing its plan to use water from the quarry for domestic supply.
Metrowater won the case and then sought $15,000 costs against the South Epsom Planning Group, which had initiated the action.
But Judge Treadwell declined to award costs.
In handing down his decision, he said the Environment Court process was supposed to be "cost-effective."
"I express some surprise that a reasonably narrow legal issue which resulted in a short six-page decision from the court should have attracted total costs [to Metrowater] of $30,577 of which $26,753 were legal expenses," he said.
Even if Metrowater had won its case for legal costs it could have claimed only $8710.
Metrowater spokeswoman Sharon Buckland defended the legal bill from its legal firm Chapman Tripp and said the water company was forced to defend an action it considered "frivolous." She said the money involved might seem a lot to an individual but was "realistic" for a company. She said the costs would have to be passed on to customers.
The latest fight in the long-running controversy over Metrowater's plan to use water from the quarry for domestic use involved the $1.8 million water treatment plant now lying idle.
Ms Buckland said ongoing costs in the fight over the Three Kings water supply included daily upkeep of the treatment plant and nitrate tests which had cost "hundreds of thousands of dollars."
The Auckland City Council is still trying to decide whether the water is pure enough to drink. The plan is to hook up 40,000 households in Three Kings, Mt Albert and Mt Eden to the supply.
The proposal is back before an Auckland City Council works committee, which is doing yet more investigations into the water.
Professor Dick Bellamy, South Epsom Planning Group president and long-time opponent of the plan, said Metrowater had adopted a "punitive" attitude in the latest legal fight.
"The request for costs [by Metrowater] was really motivated by a desire to punish us for arguing the issue," he said.
Professor Bellamy said he believed the plan to hook up residents to the water would eventually be dropped.
Judge frowns on Metrowater's legal 'excess'
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.