Northlake Investments Ltd has appealed both the conviction and sentence handed down in the Environment Court by Judge Brian Dwyer yesterday.
The development company was ordered to pay $42,500 to the Otago Regional Council after being found guilty earlier this year of breaching the Resource Management Act in August 2017, by discharging sediment-laden water into the Clutha River.
The company, associated with Queenstown developer Chris Meehan, said in a statement it ''strongly disagrees with the findings of the court'' and subsequently lodged an appeal.
During yesterday's sentencing in Queenstown, Northlake's counsel, Fraser Pilditch, said it was not deliberate, would never be repeated by the company, which took immediate action to remedy the issue, and it did not need to be prosecuted to ''get the message''.
''They know they fell below their own standards - they didn't like that and they have done everything they can to remedy that.''
Its approved resource consent included a sediment management plan, but Judge Dwyer said the ''elephant in the room'' was the nature of the site by May 2017.
At that point, he estimated, 20ha of land was ''entirely open'', unvegetated and vulnerable through winter, which was ''unsatisfactory on the basis of its own resource consent documentation''.
A sediment discharge that July was ''indicative of problems upstream'', and two days before the August 17 event that led to the prosecution Northlake received advice about the need for additional silt fencing.
Mr Pilditch said even if the company had sought to urgently address that issue, it probably would not have made a ''blind bit of difference'' at the time.
Along with the fine, to be paid to the regional council, the company was ordered to pay legal costs and disbursements of $2998.60 and witnesses' costs of $417.82.
Civil Construction Ltd was also prosecuted over the discharge - it admitted the charge and in January was fined $25,500.
