A developer has been fined $75,000 for sediment run off from the Tauriko Business Estate during heavy rain last December.

Bryce Donne is the sole director of Comanche Holdings Ltd - the developer of a 30ha industrial site at Tauriko, and one of his trusts is the sole shareholder.

The fine relates to sediment run off last December.

Most of the land within the stage two area where the spill occurred is owned by TBE 2 Ltd, of which Donne is the sole director and is also owned through one of his trusts.

Environment court judge Melanie Harding says there is nothing to distinguish one defendant from the other. Both Comanche and TBE 2 are convicted and a global fine of $75,000 was imposed.

The fine will be divided equally between the charges and the defendants.

Some 90 per cent of the fine will be paid to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. The defendants are also ordered to pay court costs of $130.00 and a solicitor's fee of $113.00 in relation to each charge.

'A message needs to be given to commercial developers that a high degree of care must be taken to ensure that storm water and sediment controls are designed and managed to prevent discharges of this nature to water,” says the Judge.

'All too often the court hears that heavy rainfall events that are thought to be unseasonable cause the sorts of problems that are apparent in this case. The life-supporting capacity of waterways simply cannot sustain repeated incidents of this nature.

'There have now been a number of cases dealing with the unlawful discharge of sediment to waterways by those involved in commercial developments.

'In the future, such offending may well attract a sterner response, and not just because the level of fine has increased. If significant profits are to be drawn from an activity, then it is reasonable to expect that the level of environmental management will be high.

In her sentencing notes, Judge Harland says Donne would have been well aware of the need for active management of the site given his previous prosecution involving stage one of the business estate development.

She previously fined him $50,000 in 2009 for two unlawful sediment discharges from the same development. Donne was the sole director of offending company IMF Backstop at the time.

In the early afternoon of December 5 a member of the public phoned the regional council to report that the water in the Waikareao Estuary at the mouth of the stream was brown from a silt discharge.

Half-an-hour later a council officer drove down for a look, and then worked his way 12km upstream before he found the source.

It was raining heavily when the officer drove into the business estate, but he could see sediment-contaminated stormwater flowing down to Taurikaura Street and then into Matarawa Place. Sediment-contaminated stormwater was also flowing from 20 Matarawa Place.

An independent report by environmental consultant Graeme Ridley found the site still did not comply with consent conditions regarding sediment control in May.

He commented that if the site was in the same condition in December he did not find it surprising that there were sediment discharges.

The rain on December 5 was a less than a 20-year period event, therefore all controls at the site should have been constructed to a standard that could cope with it.

'The inescapable inference from this is that the guidelines were in fact not complied with, and the controls in place fell well short of what the defendants were obliged to do under the resource consent,” says the Judge.

'I am also left with the impression that the defendants may well have been let down by their employees and or advisors.”