
Certified marine engineer and skipper Reginald Hill said he had worked for the company and director Peter Hall about a decade ago.
When he recently met fellow submitter and former CGC employee Oliver Moon, he was very surprised to hear the environmental shortfalls on the dredge had not improved, he said.
The two-stroke engines CGC used were "dirty, noisy engines".
The dredge would burn about 21,000 litres of diesel oil per month, and fuel was pumped on to the jetboat at the river’s edge and then off to the dredge - 104 transfers on or next to the river each month.
In over ten years, CGC had never reported a fuel spill, Mr Hill said.
The dredge was fitted with a basic motorhome type toilet and while he was on board, crew urinated directly into the river.
At the end of each shift, faeces from the toilet cassette were emptied into the river.
It was the only commercial vessel he had ever operated on that did not have a sewage holding tank or treatment plant.
Mr Moon confirmed the toilet situation was the same when he worked on the dredge.
He would usually wait until he was going to the river bank for fuel and urinate by a tree.
"I believe everyone else, including Peter [Hall], urinated directly off the side of dredge straight into the river."
He described the long, convoluted process to take the cassette from the dredge to Lawrence to empty it.
"You could see why it wasn’t being done."
On Tuesday, Mr Hall said he was "horrified" by the claims in Mr Moon’s submission.
Mr Moon had summarily quit after a short stint with the company, he did not work out his notice and there were a number of challenges during his employment when he clashed with staff, Mr Hall said.
He checked with staff employed at the same time as Mr Moon and subsequently, and they said such a practice was not employed on the dredge.
At times Mr Moon was skipper and it would have been his responsibility to have the toilet cassette emptied and he had not contacted Mr Hall to raise any issues, he said.
Mr Hall was asked to respond to Mr Hill’s evidence and to explain why the dredge did not have a sewage holding tank.