Former Bay company directors await fate over Kawerau tyre-stockpiling prosecution

Stockpiled tyres at a leased site in Kawerau before some of the tyres were removed. Photo / Supplied.

Former directors of a tyre-recycling company are awaiting their fates after breaching a court-ordered enforcement order to remove stockpiled tyres from a Kawerau site.

A sentencing hearing was held in the Environment Court at Tauranga on Monday for Alan George Merrie, Angela Kay Merrie both from Mount Maunganui and Jonathon Lindsay Spencer from Taupō.

Each defendant has admitted a charge laid by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council of contravening an enforcement order or permitting the order to be contravened.

The charge attracts a maximum penalty of a $30,000 fine or two years' prison.

The enforcement order was made by Judge David Kirkpatrick on March 2, 2018.

The order required the defendants to ensure all remaining tyres stored at a yard in Kawerau were removed and lawfully disposed of by April 30, 2018.

The Merries and Spencer are former directors of Ecoversion Logistics Limited which was incorporated in September 2014 under the name Kawerau Tyre Storage Ltd.

Between October 8, 2014 and May 1, 2015 at least 1200 tonnes of end-of-life tyres were moved to a site in Spencer Avenue leased from the Kawerau District Council.

Judge Kirkpatrick made it clear to the parties they were jointly liable for the removal of the tyres as well as actual and reasonable costs incurred by the regional council.

At the time he also fined the Merries $28,500 each and Spencer was fined $21,000 for contravening two abatement notices issued by the regional council in August 2015.

The Kawerau site is bordered on three sides by the Tarawera River, which is listed by the regional council as a habitat or migratory pathway for indigenous fish species.

The regional council's summary of facts also stated heavy metals, primarily zinc, but also cadmium and lead and organic contaminants, can slowly leach out of the tyres.

There was the potential for adverse effects to groundwater, as well as soil contamination and significant discharges into the air if there was a fire, the council said.

The saga first began after Hamilton City Council awarded a $286,235 contract to Ecoversion Logistics in 2015 to take 150,000 tyres from a failed Frankton Tyre Yard.

The company entered into an agreement to lease part of a quarry in Waihi Beach for three months and in May 2015 moved about 900 tonnes of tyres from Hamilton on to the site.

The remainder of the Hamilton tyres were sent to a Taupō address for "farm use".

Despite two abatement notices, about 900 tonnes of tyres remained at the Waihi site and about 1200 tonnes at the Kawerau site in March 2016.

Ecoversion Logistics charges were withdrawn after the company was placed into liquidation in June 2016.

All the tyres from the Waihi site have since been removed and disposed of, and most of the tyres have been removed from the Kawerau site, the regional council said.

The defendants have pleaded guilty to the charges but no convictions have been entered against the Merries who are seeking a discharge without conviction.

Judge Prudence Steven has reserved her decision.