{"id":52908,"date":"2025-09-30T22:16:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/52908\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T22:16:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:16:06","slug":"bay-of-plenty-council-probes-cable-theft-burn-offs-behind-kawerau-odour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/52908\/","title":{"rendered":"Bay of Plenty council probes cable theft burn-offs behind Kawerau odour"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regulatory compliance manager Stephen Mellor said while the calls were most frequent at the beginning of last week and had slowed since then, the smell was reported over the weekend of September 27-28.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe odour has been detected right across the Kawerau township,\u201d Mellor said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIndustrial sources have been inspected and ruled out at this stage, as wind conditions do not align with the industrial area being the source.\u201d<\/p>\n

The regional council had been working with New Zealand Police, and both agencies believed the odour to be linked to a series of wire and cable thefts in Kawerau.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral small dump sites and burn piles have been found, but those responsible have not yet been identified,\u201d Mellor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a reminder, burning plastics and rubber can release harmful substances that may affect the health of people in close proximity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anyone experiencing a strong chemical smell should call the Pollution Hotline on 0800 884883.<\/p>\n

Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air<\/p>\n

– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regulatory compliance manager Stephen Mellor said while the calls were most frequent at the beginning of last week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1561,4057,45213,3290,5205,4881,111,43,139,69,45214,1118,1562,29538,14168],"class_list":["post-52908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bay","tag-behind","tag-burnoffs","tag-cable","tag-council","tag-kawerau","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-odour","tag-of","tag-plenty","tag-probes","tag-theft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}