Coast council to impose new bylaw — rock thieves a target

Nicole Mathewson Reporter from The Press

From local democracy reporter Brendon McMahon:

West Coast Regional Council staff will have renewed clout in dealing with anyone who removes rock from floodwalls.

This follows an incident late last year where council compliance staff caught a person red-handed removing a serpentine boulder from a protection wall at the mouth of Serpentine Creek, near the Coast to Coast start line.

Serpentine along with pounamu is a toanga of Ngai Tahu and is legally owned by the iwi.

The man, equipped with a trailer fitted with a winch, ignored an order by the council and removed rock anyway after compliance staff left.

A report to the Risk and Assurance Committee this week noted the council previously had a bylaw to protect its floodwalls, implemented in 2015, but it had lapsed last April. A renewed bylaw was timely given the proposed new floodwalls.

Committee chairman Frank Dooley said compliance staff needed adequate support to exercise their authority.

"We need to make sure that whatever we have in place gives them the ammunition for them to do their job thoroughly.

"We need to support them, when we find someone taking a rock out of our stopbank," Dooley said.

Acting operations manager Colin Munn said a renewed bylaw would offer staff protection and send "a clear message".

"In my experience, I have not had a lot of occasions if you need to pull a bylaw out and prosecute, but they are useful."

Dooley referred to "a threatening e-mail" he had since received from the alleged Serpentine offender, who had asked for his "physical dimensions".

Acting consents and compliance manager Rachel Clark said the alleged rock thief had since been identified.

"The rock that was taken from the Serpentine rock protection has been found, the alleged offender has been identified and questioned over the taking of the rock. The alleged offender is currently in custody for other alleged crimes."

Clark said apparently the piece of rock was mistakenly identified by the alleged offender as Pounamu.

It was too heavy for one person to carry, hence the trailer with winch to pick up the rock.

But on recovery by council it had been properly identified as a piece of Serpentine.

"It wasn't good quality stuff."

Its understood the alleged offender was visiting from Dunedin.

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