A Warrawong developer has been ordered to pay Wollongong City Council fines of $62,500 after he illegally cleared plants and dumped materials into a watercourse at a building site near Port Kembla Hospital.
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Wollongong City Council took action against project manager Robert Michael Eldridge after he got contractors to clear an endangered white-flowered vine from the site without consultation from an ecologist.
The site was being re-mediated for a housing subdivision.
According to a Land and Environment Court (LEC) judgement, Mr Eldridge also deposited soil, rocks and a concrete pipe into a watercourse on the site which runs into Lake Illawarra.
LEC Justice Tim Moore said the land clearing and watercourse activities had a maximum penalty of $1.1 million at the time of the offences, in July 2014.
Initially, Mr Eldridge pleaded not guilty to both offences, but changed his plea to guilty while representing himself in court last year.
In evidence presented to the court, Mr Eldridge argued he had made the decision to clear vegetation on the site due to “deadly blue asbestos” being found “which required immediate removal”.
Justice Moore found there was no doubt “an element of Illawarra subtropical rainforest has been cleared and that a number of specimens of an endangered plant were also removed”.
“It is also self-evident that Mr Eldridge had no particular regard to any ecological value of this vegetation,” the judgement said, noting he repeatedly called it “green waste”.
However, Justice Moore also noted Mr Eldridge had removed dangerous asbestos contamination on the site in “a comprehensive and responsible fashion”.
In sentencing considerations, the judge said the prosecutor in the case argued Mr Eldridge’s two offences were of “moderate” seriousness, and said he accepted that the harm caused was “not to be regarded as substantial”.
As Mr Eldridge remains involved in development activities undertaken by his wife, Justice Moore said it was necessary for “a modest degree of specific deterrence” to play a part in his sentencing.
“Mr Eldridge needs, personally, to have reinforced to him the necessity that, when undertaking development projects where ecological and environmental protective conditions are imposed as part of a development consent, it is necessary to obey them and that expedience is no excuse for not doing so,” Justice Moore said.
He ordered Mr Eldridge to pay a $35,000 fine for removing the vegetation, and a $27,500 fine for the watercourse activities, as well as the prosecutor’s costs which would be at least $160,000.