You can download your own copy from here.
I can see some good and some bad, some stupid and some really good.
The 100m rule is gone and replaced by a 300m or 55dBA Leq rule. At last some common sense after years of suffering over some idiots mistake when drafting a plan rule. However, there's some muddying of the waters with regards what areas have a 300m and which a 500m setback.
No cumulative effects taken into account. There's a lot of talk about why it wasn't included, and I suppose you can see a reasonable view-point there. However, the faith that is required to be put into the hands of the MDC to now make some sort of monitoring effort to consider the cumulative effects would seem a little misplaced.
The penalty for presence of special audible characteristics is reinforced as being in place.
The MDC are told that monitoring the noise from these things isn't really an optional activity. They are really OBLIGED to do it under the RMA.
There's a lot of twoddle in the report about making sure the frost fan blades don't exceed the speed of sound. They even say that Malcolm Maclean has stated that he has measured fans exceeding this speed. Well I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that isn't likely. Not only that, but a quick check over Malcolm's measurements (published here), indicates that he's measured them exceeding a compliant speed, but not the speed of sound. (You may want to reply to this Malcolm)
However, the Biggie...
If you haven't demonstrated that your fan was compliant under the old rules and gone and gotten a certificate of compliance under section 139, then you might just be stiff out of luck.
To quote the Environment Court;
The onus is clearly on a person who relies on permitted activities status in the Plan to demonstrate that their activity is compliantIf you want to carry out a permitted activity and to subsequently be afforded the protection inherent therin, you need to have demonstrated compliance.
No demo, no permitted activity.
Jeez, that's about as much fun as a Katipo down the Y fronts.
If your resource management consultant looked after you properly, you'll have a certificate of compliance for your fans. If he or she cut corners, you could be made to SHOCK, HORROR, actually abide by a reasonable level of noise from your currently installed fans.
Wouldn't that be a shame.
2 comments:
Gidday Jack,
As you've guessed, I certainly never stated that the blades were breaking the speed of sound or that I had measured them as doing so. Unfortunately this misconception has most probably come about as a result of recommendations put to the panel at the end of the hearing by Mr Tony Quickfall (the Resource Management Advisor for the plan change and author of the section 42A document). Throughout the hearing the panel asked submitters from both sides of the argument if governing of the speed of the fans would be acceptable in order to ensure that they remained with compliant levels. They quite rightly picked up on this during my submission as a method of compliance for fans, where I stated that I had measured fans running at non-compliant speeds. Unfortunately during summing up for the panel, Mr Quickfall advised that one of the rules should provide a fan speed limit to govern the tip speed of the frost fan blades to 340m/s. The reasoning given was that the growers were happy to have the speed governed to ensure the fans remained compliant. Sadly this was the only recommendation put forward on governing and it pretty much missed a significant point of the three days of the hearing and set the tone for the numerous instances in the report where the misunderstanding appears. At the time I had to bite my tongue as it is not permitted to provide information beyond that given during a submission. However I emailed Mr Quickfall that evening and advised him that he had probably gotten his advice mixed up. He replied that he understood the point and that he was confident that the panel understood it too.
It would appear that they did not, although I believe that they did appear to get it during the hearing. I believe that Mr Quickfall's recommendation to the panel at the end of the hearing subsequently created the confusion that has resulted in the errors in the decision document.
I'm not thrilled that such a gross inaccuracy has been attributed to me, but in the bigger picture, the new rules allow for setting a frost fan to a design speed as part of the installation process. So this will provide a mechanism for a simple measurement of fan rotation for compliance.
Thanks Malcolm.
That sounds a bit convoluted. But it make more sense than the statements that the blades exceed the speed of sound :-)
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