The Annual Environmental Incident Report provides a summary and
analysis of the complaints received by the Wellington Regional Council
over the past year from 1 July 2000 to 30 June 2001.

Pollution Response is available to the community 24 hours a day,
everyday of the year. It responds to a broad range of environmental
incidents including discharges to air, water, and land; unauthorised works
in the coastal marine area and the beds of rivers; and unauthorised water
takes.

In Wellington, Pollution Response is provided by the Resource Quality
Section (Resource Quality). Resource Quality’s other responsibilities
include contaminated site management, and with the Environmental Co-
ordination Department is implementing Take Charge, the pollution
prevention programme. Resource Quality is ISO 9002 accredited for
incident response work. Resource Quality also responds to after hours
complaints regarding consented activities. Consented activities that create
numerous complaints are noted in this report, but for a comprehensive
assessment of resource consent compliance refer to the Resource
Consent Annual Compliance Report.

Beacon Hill Harbour Radio receives pollution complaints after hours, and
contacts the duty officer who responds depending on the nature of
pollution complaint.

There are four response levels:

Red Response (1 hour response time): This type of incident usually
involves immediate impact on the environment such as discharges to
water and air. On occasions Red level incidents require co-ordination with
other agencies such as Regional Public Health, City & District Councils,
and the Fire Service.

Yellow Response (24 hour response time): This type of incident is
unlikely to cause any immediate detrimental impact on the environment
but still needs to be followed up. Types of incidents that have a Yellow
Response include dead stock in streams, minor works, and minor
potential effects from continuous activities, such as discharges to
stormwater from car washing operations.

Blue Response (30 day response time): This type of incident
does not require any immediate action, but may require following up at a
later date. This includes complaints about irregularly occurring activities
that are not occurring at the present time, but need to be followed up in the
future.

Log Only: Some incidents do not require investigation, but are important to
note, and as such are logged onto the Incident Response Database.
These include complaints about activities that occurred in the past.