Charges have been laid over a landfill fire that nearby north Waikato residents made hundreds of complaints about, calling it “putrid” and “toxic”. The Puke Coal landfill site at Pukemiro, west of Huntly, has had an ongoing fire since August 2020, Waikato Regional Council said. After investigating for almost a year, the council has laid 44 charges “relating to activities at the Puke Coal landfill site”, the council said in a statement on Monday. Five agencies – Waikato Regional Council, Waikato District Council, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Ministry for the Environment and WorkSafe – were working on the situation. He has previously been convicted in the Environment Court and the Waikato Regional Council has described “quite a long history of RMA non-compliance”.

Source: Stuff August 16, 2021 02:03 UTC