A day in the life…
Environment Southland compliance technical team leader Graeme McKenzie’s role is to gather and interpret data.
Graeme gathers a water sample for testing from the Waihopai River.
On any regular day, Graeme can be seen supporting the four compliance technical officers in his team who manage the consents for industrial companies and local authorities.
These types of consents vary between bed and breakfasts, school sewerage systems, freezing works or big industrial company consents.
“An average day for the team is about understanding data, reading reports, interpreting information provided by the consent holder to confirm that we agree with their conclusions.
“We do also aim to visit our major industrial sites at least once a year to audit their monitoring activities and check to make sure that everything they’re doing does meet the consent conditions.”
More recently, a significant amount of work is coming through after the announcement of the New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS) Tiwai site closure in 2024. Graeme is part of the project team whose role is to identify and monitor contaminated land at the site with a view to ensuring that NZAS can remediate the site as required.
With years of knowledge and understanding of the Tiwai site and the consents that NZAS holds, Graeme is leading his team to increase monitoring and sampling of priority areas across the site.
He is also liaising with land contamination consultants who are reviewing information from NZAS’ closure study, and will provide recommendations on the council’s next steps.
When people call Environment Southland’s 24-hour pollution hotline after-hours, they talk to a member of the compliance team. While Graeme doesn’t have the privilege of being on the on-call roster for after-hours responses anymore, he does support the team to make decisions on how to respond and actions to take when dealing with a pollution incident.
“The reports we get could be anything from odour complaints and smoky fires, to effluent discharges and anything in between.”
One job highlight that comes to mind for Graeme, is the time he attended an incident that involved hazardous substances.
“The defence force got wind that we needed to remove this unknown hazardous substance, so they came out and used it as a training exercise. They removed it, contained it and sent it away for testing.”
Steadfast and calm, Graeme speaks with a clear purpose when he’s discussing incidents and technical information. It’s his ability to remain level-headed that has proven very useful during region-wide emergencies. As Intel Manager for emergency responses, most recently the February 2020 floods, Graeme gathers and shares information with the Emergency Management Southland team.
As well as this, he plays a key role in oil spill responses – helping to plan and deploy equipment that helps to contain and remove oil from land and water.
So, what’s Graeme’s favourite part of the job?
“The variety,” he says. “Some days you just don’t know what to expect. I especially enjoy the technical elements, because of my background, and I enjoy trying to understand what the science is and what the problem is.
“Compliance is always going to be a challenging role. It’s challenging to balance expectations of the different parts of the community – you are never going to please everyone. You do have to have a thick skin and be quite clear in how you deliver your message. But in saying that, it’s a rewarding role, because you are also helping people and educating people.”
You can read the full Envirosouth magazine as a PDF online here.
