A wall of dirt appeared in Kennington near Invercargill in New Zealand is causing grief for some residents, and being used as a water slide by others. Source: Stuff NZ
The several hundred metre-long dirt wall on the border of Niagara Sawmill was built by Niagara to block noise from the sawmill after they received complaints from residents in the area.
A Niagara Sawmill representative said the bund on First St was built as part of a “noise mitigation plan”.
“The bund has been built on Niagara Sawmill’s land as part of our noise mitigation plan which had been discussed with both the neighbourhood and the council,” he said.
Invercargill City Council director of environment and planning services Pamela Gare said council staff had inspected the dirt pile.
The landowner did not have the resource consent to build a “bund” of that size in a rural sub area, Ms Gare said.
“We have written to the Niagara sawmilling facility and we have said stop because you don’t have a resource consent to build a bund that size on that section.”
Ms Gare said she had emailed an employee of sawmill about the dirt mound.
“We have worked out a meeting on the between Environment Southland, Niagara and the council about the issue of the bund,” Ms Gare said.
“We have received complaints about the bund, I believe we have received two [complaints].”
Ms Gare would not say if the mound could be removed.
It appeared the dirt came from another part of the sawmill site, Ms Gare said.
A Kennington resident said the dirt appeared in the past few weeks.
Trucks moving the dirt damaged and tore the road, she said.
“Over a week there were easily 200 to 300 trucks running in and out it was just constant.
A Niagara Sawmill Representative said the damage to the road was minimal.
“We acknowledge that there was some minimal damage caused to the road during construction due to the warmer weather, which will be rectified,” he said.
A second resident said the dirt pile did not bother him. His children used the bund to set up their water slide, he said.
Another resident called the dirt mound “the great dirt mountain of Kennington”.
No residents contacted believed the mound had made a difference to the sound coming from the sawmill
