Waikato River Spill (2019) - Contact Energy fined - Dec 2020

This “key factor” resulted in a chain of events that in February 2019 turned a stretch of the Waikato River, and the Huka Falls, brown for two days from an overflow of an estimated 15,000 cubic metres of water and soil.

The muddy water had come from an overloaded holding pond which collapsed following maintenance to a Te Mihi Power Station geothermal reinjection well. An air lock had forced a valve shut causing fluid to be redirected to the pond.

In sentencing the company, Chief Environment Court Judge David Kirkpatrick said “the key factor in the setting of a starting point for this offending was the failure by Contact's staff to respond to the warnings and alarms produced by its own system”. (From Stuff article by Taupo Times writer Chris Marshall 3.12.2020)