Tauranga liquid waste removal company Pete's Takeaways has been fined $35,000 for polluting the Waimapu Stream.

The company pleaded guilty in Tauranga District Court in December to three charges under the Resource Management Act, relating to related to contaminated liquid overflowing from its sewage treatment facility in June 2011.

The Waimapu Stream.

The company was fined at a sentencing hearing today.

'In breach of the resource consent issued in 2005 to Pete's Takeaways Limited, liquid waste overflowed from treatment ponds,” says Bay of Plenty Regional Council Pollution Prevention Manager, Nick Zaman.

'Our inspections of the site revealed heightened levels of faecal coliform contamination in the liquid flowing into the Waimapu Stream.”

The Regional Council prosecuted Petes Takeaways Limited for allowing liquid waste to escape the treatment ponds and flow overland into a waterway on two occasions in June 2011, and for depositing waste onto land where it flowed into a tributary of Waimapu Stream on one occasion.

Both offences occurred following periods of rain.

'Petes Takeaways Limited failed to ensure that pond levels were low enough to avoid overflow in the event of rain, and failed to adhere to the conditions of their resource consent by de-watering the bio-solids they were storing on the site,” says Nick.

'Periods of heavy or persistent rain are not uncommon in the Bay, and this successful prosecution should be a warning to all resource consent holders to adhere to all the conditions of their consent, rain hail or shine.”