Dowse to Petone Interchange Environmental Management
About this project
Dowse to Petone provides an expressway section to State Highway 2 in Lower Hutt providing less friction between highway traffic and people travelling. It also provides better access to Percy Scenic Reserve at the base of Dowse Drive, improved access and parking to Petone Station and a parallel service road to the state highway to provide for vehicles access and exiting the Korokoro industrial area.
Approach
Align created a compliance and environmental effects register to rationalise the 200 plus conditions placed on the project; and an environmental plan setting out the environmental management system. Nine environmental management plans were produced (dust & air; erosion & sediment control; hazardous substances; heritage & archaeological; Korokoro Stream; noise & vibration; Percy Reserve management; vegetation clearance & landscape mitigation; and waste road debris & material loss). These plans included summary environmental management drawings (locations of the works sites, the site-specific environmental effects and receiving environments) and environmental management schedules (actions and timesframes for controls, maintenance, contruction, inspections, contingencies, inspections and monitoring). Align audited the project every week for two plus years.
Outcomes
The project fully complied with the requirements of the Resource Management Act (1991) and solid relationships were built with the local community, councils and other network utilities. The project was the first in the country to to be awarded three consecutive A Grade results by an independent auditing team from Fletchers.
The D2P project presented a highly complex challenge in terms of meeting its legal compliance and environmental effects management requirements. These requirements were rationalised and honed down into practical drawings and schedules that the contractors could easily use via a well structured environmental management system .