While Whakatāne District Council plans to lower the decibel levels allowable for bird scaring cannons the new regulation will not apply to orchardists currently using them.
Photo: Supplied / LDR
The council's review of its district plan for controls of audible bird scaring devices was approved for public notification to the council's strategy and policy committee for approval last week.
The gas cannon devices create an impulse that sounds like a gun shot. On the Rangitaiki plains they are most commonly used in spring when kiwifruit are budding as birds cause damage to the buds which can have a devastating result on crops. They are one of a range of tools used by kiwifruit growers and are also used by some berry growers.
The review was carried out over the past year, after complaints from Poroporo residents disturbed by the use of the devices. The proposed plan change will create new regulations, amongst which is the reduction in the permitted noise level from 100 decibels to 85 decibels.
Senior policy planner Deborah Ganley, who carried out the review, said any device beyond the 85 decibel limit would become a restricted discretionary activity requiring a resource consent. While it would not necessarily stop the use of any device over the 85 decibel limit it would give the council more options to control how often, where and when those devices were used and who used them.
"At the moment, if someone wanted to be really annoying they could use it at any old time of the year that they wanted to," Ganley said. "I would hazard to say that there would be few orchardist that will be able to operate an audible bird scaring device like a gas cannon and meet the 85 decibel level. Nearly everyone, going forward, will need to get a resource consent," she said.
However, concerns voiced by councillors that the new regulation may cause hardship for kiwifruit growers led infrastructure general manager Bevan Gray to clarify that existing use rights would mean people with existing audible bird scaring devices could continue to use them under the existing rules. The new limit will only apply to new bird scaring devices.
Councillor Julie Jukes, who was the main driver of the plan change, thanked staff for all the work they had put into the paper but expressed her dismay that existing users would not come under the new rules.
"So we have just achieved nothing for the people who have complained about the noise, [the orchardists] can continue to use it at 100 or whatever they are using," Jukes said.
Ganley disputed this statement on the grounds that, previous to the review, audible bird scaring devices were being used at much higher levels than 100 decibels. Monitoring showed some were 120 or 130 decibels.
"We have done some monitoring and we have made it obvious that if you aren't meeting the existing district plan level then we are going to be contacting you. At the moment I have taken an approach that, where I have been monitoring and it exceeded the existing district plan level I have made a phone call to orchardists to make them aware, firstly about the rules, and that we had monitored their device and they needed to make some change because we were getting complaints.
"By making them more aware, those orchardists did turn them off and they will be doing things differently next time."
Councillor Wilson James asked what the reasoning was for choosing 85 decibels while both Western Bay and Ōpōtiki districts set the limit at 65 decibels.
Ganley said those council's used different measurement techniques to Whakatāne which averaged the sound levels over a period of time.
"If you use LEQ, which is just an average over a set time frame of, generally, 10 minutes, then that enables the device to go off at much higher than 100 decibels providing the average over the time meets the permitted level."
The plan changes also clarified rules for non-impulsive bird scaring devices. These include devices that give off a high frequency pitch similar to a bird distress call. They now have daytime limits of 50 decibels and nighttime limits of 40 decibels.
"You generally can't hear it unless you are quite close to the device," Ganley said, comparing it to a high-pitched dog whistle.
"Those devices can be used 24 hours a day. You are unlikely to hear it, but in case it was annoying the nighttime limit has been lowered."
Other changes proposed were to set a fixed time limit for use of impulsive devices from 7am to 10pm. Councillor Nandor Tanczos disagreed with this timeframe and the rationale behind it - that it would make enforcement more difficult.
"It is much easier from an enforcement point of view to have an exact time," Ganley said.
Tanczos proposed to keep the time limits to half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset, as it is currently, which was carried by the majority of councillors.
The plan change will be publicly notified in September with the public able to submit their views.
Asked how much the review had cost, policy, planning and consents compliance manager Nicholas Woodley told the Beacon in a written statement that evidence to support the proposed change included desktop modelling, field monitoring, a peer review, communication tactics and consultant reports to the value of over $35,500 to date, as well as staff time.
"Council has a responsibility to manage the effects of activities on people and on the environment," Mr Woodley said. "With any plan change to the District Plan, we are governed by the Resource Management Act, and we need to ensure we meet these statutory requirements outlined in the Act. As well as this we need to make sure we have robust evidence to support why we are proposing the changes. Both of these requirements mean there will always be costs associated with the process."
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