An Environment Court judge said yesterday he was ''about as unhappy as I can be'' finding he could not immediately sentence a company and its managing director for discharging a hazardous material to land.
Judge Brian Dwyer, sitting in Invercargill, was expecting to sentence Taha Asia Pacific managing director Mark Anthony Egginton on five charges.
Three charges relate to storing toxic material Ouvea Premix in a gravel pit at Edendale last year, and two relate to discharging a contaminant believed to be Ouvea Premix on a farm at Greenhills, Bluff, between August last year and February this year.
Egginton pleaded guilty to the charges on June 26.
Taha Asia Pacific, which has its headquarters in Bahrain, has admitted the Edendale charges and denied the Bluff charges. A trial date is yet to be set on the latter matter.
Ouvea Premix is a hazardous substance left over from Taha's aluminum dross-recycling plant at the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. Taha plans to establish a factory in Southland to process the premix into mineral fertiliser but is storing it in the meantime.
Judge Dwyer said he was unable to sentence Egginton because there were ''identified victims'' in the Edendale and Bluff incidents and they had not been asked if they wished to participate in a restorative justice process.
The identifiable victims at Edendale were two gravel pit workers who were taken to hospital feeling unwell and suffering headaches, and a neighbour who also said they felt unwell. The Bluff victim was a downstream landowner concerned the premix had infiltrated a waterway accessed by the household, he said.
Judge Dwyer said section 24A of the Sentencing Act 2002, added last year, required restorative justice to be investigated in all cases where there were identified victims.
''That decision has to be made by someone else, not the court. Parliament has set it up that way.
''Regrettably, it appears I cannot complete sentencing ... until the appropriate person had made a decision.''
Mary-Jane Thomas, appearing for Egginton, said there was a complicating factor. Egginton was a British citizen whose New Zealand work visa expired at the end of next month, requiring him to leave the country, but he was unable to leave the country if he was still facing charges.
After taking an adjournment, Judge Dwyer said he would return to Invercargill to sentence Egginton and Taha on July 27.
In March, the Environment Court issued an enforcement order requiring Taha to pay $30,745.97 to Environment Southland towards the cost of investigating and cleaning up premix at Edendale. The order remains in place irrespective of the outcome of sentencing.
Taha is also facing heat in Mataura over storing premix at the former Mataura paper mill site without resource consent. It is applying for retrospective consent.
