* Environment Canterbury orders China-based firm to stop water bottling after it breached consent * Slow progress on bottled water export tax * Foreign firm allowed to bottle millions of litres of water a day from Christchurch aquifers * Environment Canterbury accused of ‘bending the law’ over water bottling consents * Fundraising for challenge to water bottling consents has a ‘tailwind’, litigant says But ECan served an abatement notice on the company on Friday after it emerged it had been taking water without informing authorities.
The firm is unlikely to face serious sanction because the notice only requires it to stop taking the water and meet the conditions of its resource consent.
Enforcement is dictated by the Resource Management Act (RMA).
It was Cloud Ocean Water’s first consent breach.
It issued the abatement notice after the company failed to heed its instructions to stop.
The abatement notice means it must now stop taking groundwater until it meets all consent conditions.
A Cloud Ocean Water spokeswoman said: "This is a new business and the company is making a $50 million investment in Belfast and creating 200 new jobs turning a disused wool scour into an exporting plant.
It is not clear when Cloud Ocean Water began illegally taking water or how much has been extracted, though the spokeswoman said the amount was "small" as production is yet to begin.
Because water cannot be priced, the public recoups little from water bottling operations, other than minor administration costs.
A WorkSafe spokeswoman said: "WorkSafe has been aware of health and safety concerns at the Cloud Ocean Water site since September 2017.