SAWDUST POLLUTION OF STREAM

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5320, 5 February 1947, Page 6

SAWDUST POLLUTION OF STREAM

r me Of £20 Imposed On Millmg Firm Charged under the Fisheries Act wit" allowing sawdust front their mill pollute the Mangakino River, Mnhomnu-d F. Khan and Cedric W. Ecreham. sawniillers, wero collect- . iv»ly fitted i'20 hy Mr. J. II. I.uxford, S.M., jri the Magistrate's Court yesterday. Mr. S. McNamara, (hmservator oi Fish and Otane. who prnxecuted, said doiend.'int Boreham had promised to reetify the niatter, l»ut nolhing had dorie, li was otu* oi the worst case? of its kind in his oxperienee. Six du>> later, Boreham liad informed a ranger lliat the work had been dorie, which indieated that not ? greui deal of labour had been veoutred to abate the nuisance. The liiternal Alfairs Department louked on the mattor as a very serious oue, not only from the point of vieu of lisli eonservatioii, lnit also from the fact that water for human consumption was polluled. In evidence led hv Mr. R. A. Portei", Mohammed Khan stated that the mill was three-ouartevs of a mile from t.he stream. It had cost his firm over £200 to eut through a liiil i> deposit ihe sawdust away trom the stream and a barrieade had been ■erected along the hank at a cost of £ 1 00. The tvall was, 22 feet high. Tf(Ave* er, heavy rain catised a certain amount of seepage into the water. The Magistrate said that a public nuisance hjul 1 cen created and as this was the third prosecution over a period, he wottld imposo a fino of £20 and costs. 1