Dust monitoring – northwest Christchurch
We often respond to reports of offensive or nuisance dust from community members who live and work around dust sources. This page shows our latest monitoring information including the number of reports we've received and proactive site visits in these areas.
For more information about offensive dust, how we assess dust discharges, key factors we consider, our investigation process and the action we take, download this 'Offensive dust factsheet' (PDF File, 40.25KB).
Based on previous years’ data, we expect dust reports (and our associated monitoring activity) to decrease over winter, while being more prominent in summer when conditions are dry and windy.
Reports
The following graph shows the number of reports of dust we've received via phone, email, or Snap Send Solve over the past six months.
Business hours of the compliance team are 8.00am-4.30pm, Monday to Friday.
After hours means weekdays outside of business hours, as well as weekends and public holidays. During these times, only serious events are attended.
Incidents and proactive site visits
The following graph shows the number of recorded incidents, attended incidents, and proactive dust monitoring visits undertaken by our staff over the last six months.
Routine consent monitoring compliance visits are also being undertaken in addition to these proactive visits and complaint responses.
Recorded incident means one dust discharge event. There may be many reports from the community that all relate to a single dust event.
Attended incident means incidents that were attended by a warranted compliance officer. Not all attended incidents will result in the officer detecting dust as conditions may have changed.
Proactive site visits are dust monitoring visits undertaken that were not triggered by complaints. Officers plan when to conduct these visits based on when weather conditions are most likely to cause dust issues. Potential dust generating sites in the area are not aware of when we will be conducting these visits.
Proactive site visit summaries
March 2024
In March there were no complaints about dust from the northwest part of Christchurch.
We spent 2.3 hours undertaking proactive monitoring for dust at sites within the northwest area of Christchurch. None of these events were substantiated.
February 2024
In February there were no complaints regarding offensive or objectionable dust effects from the sites within northwest Christchurch.
During that time, two proactive visits were conducted. In both instances, quarry managers took action to minimize dust discharge, and they received verbal warnings.
January 2024
In January there were no complaints regarding offensive and objectionable dust from the sites within the northwest Christchurch area.
Five proactive site visits were conducted, namely on the 10, 12, 17, 24 and 29 January. On these proactive visits, no offensive and objectionable dust events were noted.
At times, on the 10th and 29 January, small plumes of dust that stayed within the boundary of the quarries were noted. These were not considered to be offensive and objectionable.
December 2023
We received no complaints of offensive and objectionable dust from sites within the northwest Christchurch area.
One proactive dust monitoring site visit occurred on 8 December. Wind conditions were 39km/h easterlies at the time. No offensive or objectionable dust was noted on this visit. A second site visit on 11 December noted nothing of significance, despite north-easterly winds at 44km/h.
November 2023
We received one report of offensive and objectionable dust from sites within the northwest Christchurch area. This was not responded to due to staff availability.
One proactive dust monitoring site visit occurred on 29 November. Wind conditions were 46km/h at the time. Dust was observed within the boundaries of some sites, but was not leaving the property boundary and thus not causing offensive and objectionable effects.
October 2023
We received four reports of offensive and objectionable dust from sites within the northwest Christchurch area. Two of these were responded to, with dust beyond the property boundary observed on 26 October. The dust observed did not reach the threshold for offensive and objectionable, as it was infrequent and low intensity. However, the site’s manager and the company’s environmental advisor were advised of our observations. They have advised that they are reviewing their dust mitigation measures in response.
One proactive dust monitoring site visit also occurred on 13 October. Wind conditions were 24km/h northerlies at the time. No dust was observed at any of the sites monitored.
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