Compliance Assessments 2008-09

Monitoring requirements are different for each consented activity and are based on how long the activity will last for, the scale of the activity and the potential for it to affect the environment.

Not all consented activities need monitoring as some may have little or no impact on the environment. Others may only need monitoring on an occasional basis, however those with the potential to have a significant impact need to be monitored more frequently.

In 2008-09, 2784 monitoring visits were made by Regional Council staff. The graph below breaks these monitoring visits down into the consented activity by type. As can be seen, the number of monitoring visits undertaken for each activity largely reflects the number of consents issued for that activity.

Compliance Assessment Results

Activities with the highest rate of significant non-compliance were those relating to the discharge of a substance into the environment. The majority of significantly non-compliant discharges (60%) were of farm dairy effluent. Coastal activities had the second highest rate of significant non-compliance. Significant non-compliance in relation to coastal activities could include a structure that is not the consented size. The third highest rate of significant non-compliance was for land-use activities and includes earthworks undertaken without sediment control.