Newsletter - July 2025

Further to the update of 06 July, Officers of our Bream Bay Guardian Incorporated Society  (BBGS), with support from Society members, and several pro bono professional advisers, have been analysing documents and interviewing people who have knowledge of McCallum Brothers Ltd (MBL) activities and the science surrounding all aspects of sandmining.

 Associated with this work:

1.         Helen Castles (ex TVNZ news reporter for many years) has been contracted to manage our publicity and investigative reporting. She has successfully managed the placement of news items as follows:

●      With support from Emma Hart, we were on One News in early July speaking about manufactured sand and the disaster of sandmining.

●      A letter drafted by Brenda Leeuwenberg has been publicised on ZB news.

●      Radio NZ is about to carry our story in its news bulletins about Auckland Council’s failure to carry out their statutory duties and lack of proper process around taking MBL to task for dredging those very large channels at Pakiri.

Further news placements we are working on with Helen will include topics such as: (i) the fairy tale about the lack of sand supply to Auckland, (ii) MBL lack of consideration for consent compliance at Pakiri, (iii) the science of coastal sand movements in Bream Bay found in other Tonkin and Taylor reports on Bream Bay (which conflict directly with MBL’s proposal at this stage) and, (iv) the hiding of non-complying MBL activities for years until they were found out by Damon Clapshaw et al.

Helen has also undertaken interviews and work uncovering MBL supporters’ misinformation. For example:

●      Recently, the Aggregates and Quarrymen’s Association has pronounced that Auckland has a sand supply crisis, has run out of sand in the past, and that MBL sand is essential to make concrete in Auckland. 

Subsequently, Helen emailed the Association asking when Auckland ran out of sand. The response explained that there were some close occasions, but that these shortages didn’t actually happen for other reasons. When pressed further, the answer was that one concrete pour in Auckland was delayed for one week, but no information about who, where, or when has been provided.

●      Knowing that MBL is currently mining very little sand, Helen also asked how Auckland concrete manufacturers are still making concrete up to specification.

The response to this question was that they have been using sand from other suppliers and redesigning their concrete mixes (i.e., usually adding or taking out admixtures, etc.). The reality is that Auckland can and does make perfectly good concrete without MBL sand.

2.         Society Officers have been researching and discovering why there is little recognised evidence of MBL’s breaches at Pakiri.

We know it is essential that the evaluation panel for MBL’s Bream Bay sand mining Fast Track application knows the history of why there are no serious consent breaches recorded at Pakiri, even though they certainly occurred and some were serious. MBL has been claiming it has never had a prosecution for a breach of their consent at Pakiri.

Bruce Copeland and Malcolm Morrison have met with senior Auckland Council’s (AC) consent staff who had been avoiding this for 2 months (despite their CEO instructing to meet with us a lot sooner). During the meeting, it was clear that the attending staff were making some erroneous claims. For example, we were informed that:

●      MBL’s GPS data is accurate, but the AIS systems that track where boats are worldwide, so they don’t crash into each other, are inaccurate by 3 to 5 km. Our research shows it is usually accurate to less than 100m

●      The consent for Pakiri contained a clause stating that the operator had to use their best endeavours not to make trenches and that they should not exceed the 1.3m limit (active sand layer + 0.5m). Evidence has been collected that the active sand layer was approximately 0.7 m to 1 m deep, but there were multiple trenches kilometres long with depths up to 2.7m.

The conclusions to the meeting with the AC were as follows:

Item 1: Failure to monitor the operator

AC staff agreed that there was no active monitoring of consent compliance apart from reading MBL reports for about 20 years. Neither did they monitor the GPS tracking of the dredge submitted by MBL.

In our experience, this is a very unusual practice in self-monitoring situations used by councils all over NZ. Almost without exception, councils are expected to make either regular or random audits and reviews of the operators’ on-site practices, including: (i) inspecting that the sand all came from the active layer and that (ii) there were no apparent trenches. Marie Doole, whom we invited to the meeting (and who has a PhD in consenting in councils in NZ), also noted her expectation that typically reviews and audits would be undertaken in the circumstances.

The MBL consent anticipates these inspections of on-site practices by having a clause that requires the company to provide access to all its operational areas at any time AC staff require. The officers in the meeting did not think that this had ever happened and said they had no evidence to show it had. We note that MBL’s Managing Director confirmed this in his evidence to the Environment Court. It is our belief that AC has failed in its statutory duty to undertake this monitoring so that it could confirm that, based on its audits and reviews, MBL was conforming reasonably to the consent conditions.

No one (except perhaps MBL staff) knows how many breaches occurred in the previous 20 years. The Pakiri analysis presented to the Environment Court indicated that the consent was breached 50 times in 50 operations. Based on the comments made by the Environment Court, we have grave concerns about any records cited by MBL.

AC agreed to respond to this concern within a week.

Item 2: Decision making regarding the exceedance of trench depths.

AC staff stated that they thought that the consent term “Best Endeavours” was a very non-specific term that was very hard to measure. And so, they assumed that MBL had made its best endeavours to limit the depth of any trenches.

We stated that the term Best Endeavours is often used in legal documents and there is a wide body of case law, mainly because of contractual disputes.

Best endeavours are definitely not occurring when MBL hid the facts about the trenches from AC and from MBL’s expert consultants, which led the consultants to provide erroneous reports about the presence and size of the trenches to AC and the Environment Court. The MBL experts stated that the seabed had no major fluctuations exceeding the consent constraints. MBL knew that this information was incorrect when it was presented and it is only because of Damon Clapshaw, paying for a sophisticated survey ship, that evidence of the trenches were even discovered. In the Environment Court MBL’s Managing Director said he had known about the trenches for 2 years and had not reported them to AC despite the requirement to self-monitor.

Best endeavours do not include repeated trenching at least 800 times along the same GPS track, resulting in the formation of significant trenches. MBL supplied GPS outputs showing the dredging tracks, which means either that they were incorrect or that AC did not read or understand them. We think it is probably the latter. MBL, in its reporting, should have noted this continual tracking as an exception report, and AC could have found it if they had only been monitoring the MBL GPS records.

AC stated that they could not undertake onsite inspections because:

1. On the dredge, it would have told them nothing. We maintain, for example, they could have taken and analysed sand samples to: (i) ascertain the sand type that is being dredged is consistent with the consent requirements and in doing so, investigated (ii) the negative and destructive impacts of the dredging on sea life and (iii) the relative position of the dredge recorded on the GPS and AIS systems.

2. Inspecting the sea floor with contracted professional divers would incur additional and unbudgeted costs. We maintain it would be a minimal amount compared to the damage the dredging was causing and the value MBL was receiving for the sand. One trench that was discovered yielded about $2.5 million worth of non-consented sand to MBL. AC stated they couldn’t use divers but had no explanation of why not. It is a bad indictment on AC that a private individual self-funded this work to a far greater level than AC would have had to do to discover the trenches.

Council processes regarding the decision about the seriousness of the trenches:

A number of experts could not agree on how the sand movement worked at Pakiri, and so there is no way the AC relatively junior staff member could have made an informed decision about the trenches having “less than minor effects.” The decision process was certainly not robust because it is unwise to decide on the lowest level of damage when there is insufficient information.

AC agreed that they would review all the evidence regarding the trenches (including MBL’s reports) and how the decision to class this breach as having less than minor effects was made by a since departed staff member and signed of by a more senior staff member. This includes clarifying the consent conditions that applied to the making of the trenches

3.         We have been urging the Northland Regional Council (NRC) to review their decision not to investigate evidence that we supplied that demonstrates MBL has continued to mine sand while turning their dredge around in Northland waters. The reason NRC have given is that they received GPS tracking of MBL’s ship from AC staff who determined that the alleged mining activities that we reported used AIS information which was inaccurate. Remembering that Auckland Council staff told us that AIS was inaccurate from between 3 to 5 km – and that our research shows it is usually accurate to less than 100m.

Under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA), we have issued an official request to NRC this week to get access to the information AC sent them in defence of MBL’s position.

4.         In rough weather, Bruce Copeland, Peter Hunt, Malcolm Morrison, and Shaun Lee (an expert on scallops) accompanied Blair Jones on a sampling study of the bottom of Bream Bay within the MBL-nominated mining site. Several interesting finds were made, and our next trip will include dives at these spots.

Thank you to Vince Kerr for lending us some of the sampling gear, to Shaun Lee for doing parallel sampling, and to Blair Jones for providing his great boat and expertise at cost for the day.

5.         Representatives of the Bream Bay Guardian Society recently attended a presentation showing Patuharakeke Iwi marine science processes and information. It was very impressive, so much so that we have asked Hollie Kereopa to join us on our next sampling boat trip.

Did you know that:

●      Approximately 25% of NZ’s bottlenose dolphin population lives in Bream Bay.

●      There are manta rays within easy range of Bream Bay.

●      Whales that visit us include Blue Whales, Bryde's, Humpback and Orcas.

6. We are planning a free screening of Sir David Attenborough documentary “Ocean” in the Coronation Hall in Waipu on 9 August between 4.30pm and 6.30pm. This is a ‘must see’ for as many of our local network as possible. The documentary is very relevant to our ‘Save Bream Bay Sand’ cause. Information will be disseminated on the free screening in the next week – so watch this space and come along to view the documentary, to hear more about our work and to collect information that you can use to build our community/network, and to promulgate and support our opposition to sand dredging in Bream Bay. Further screenings are being planned in Mangawhai, Ruakaka and One Tree Point.

7. And finally, we are finalising our professional advisers for the review of MBL’s formal application which we expect to be lodged in August.

Whilst we have yet to achieve Charitable Status (refer to our previous newsletter), you will recall we had a pretty big target to raise so we could adequately rebut MBL’s Fast Track application. This list includes lawyers, marine ecologists, sand and concrete experts, economists, coastal process experts and others.

We are hopeful that we will have details of a bank account with Charitable Association approval in the next few days. Your support is going to be vital over the next few weeks.

Thank you

Please feel free to contact us with ideas, information or questions:

Bruce; 0274 924743 bruce@sandfield.co.nz

Malcolm 021 854 829 malcolm@malcolmmorrison.co.nz

Mary 027 2968151 marysi@xtra.co.nz