Firm denies waste killed salmon

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34129, 15 April 1976, Page 12

Firm denies waste killed salmon

A claim that young salmon released from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries hatchery on the upper Kaiapoi River had been killed by discharges from a fellmongery was denied at a Regional Water Board hearing yetserday.

The North Canterbury Wool and Fellmongery Company applied to a special tribunal of the board for a renewal of its right to discharge treated effluent into the river. Objections were lodged by the Ministry, the North Canterbury Acclimatisation Society, and the Friends of the Waimakariri. The tribunal, which reserved its decision, heard conflicting views. The company claimed that the quality of "its discharge had improved. The Ministry said that the river water was up to one-third more polluted than it was two years ago. The tribunal comprised the chairman of the board’s water committee. Mr H. E. Connor; Dr B. W. Earle, of the chemical engineering department of the University of Canterbury; and Mr P. J. McAloon, a barrister. Mr R.

C. Saunders appeared for the company. The board’s water engineer (Mr J. McF. Hamilton) and its investigating officer (Mr R. B. Ayrey), reported on water samples taken at 33 points on the lower Waimakariri and its tributaries between November, 1975, and March '3l. SULPHIDE LEVELS The report said that the Kaiapoi River, below the fellmongery, was cloudy, with an offensive smell. Sulphide levels were up to 12 times above the level toxic to fish. The company had been processing since 1954, said Mr Saunders. From a standing start in July. 1973. the company had made a genuine and apparently effective effort to fulfil its obligations. Could the objectors point to any other water user in the region which had gone so far to control pollution? he asked. The fellmongerv was the only one north of Timaru in the South Island, and processed 400,000 skins a year, worth s2m in overseas funds, said the company’s chairman of directors, Mr H. A. Steel.

The company had spent $108,600 on nollution control plant and $81,700 on im-

proved processing to reduce pollution. More control equipment would cost about $25,000. There had been a marked improvement in river quality since the company had completed the first phase of its control works, said Mr J. E. Cranko, a consulting engineer. Given more time to experiment, the company would have treatment to reasonable standards. Mr Cranko introduced a 70-page thesis by Mr S. C. Toshach to support the view that water quality had improved, but Mr Cranko agreed that at minimum flows the water would not comply with the D classification for quality.

The Acclimatisation Society and the Ministry made a joint objection, Mr H. Gajadhar, for the Ministry, saying that the discharge from the fellmongery was toxic, that baby salmon bad been killed in the river over the last two years, and that the discharge had an adverse effect on the Ministry’s salmon hatchery, upstream from the fellmongery. Mr C J. Hardy, the Ministry’s salmon development officer, said there had been a marked increase, at times, in the sulphide in the river,

and in other pollutants injurious to fish. Sulphide levels were well in excess of that known to kill fish. The discharge was detrimental to the Ministry’s plans to develop an induced salmon run to the hatchery, said Mr Hardy. Fisheries development, and the development of a commercial salmon fishery, were also prejudiced. There had been six known kills of smolt at times when the river smelled strongly of sulphide, said Mr Hardy. The Ministry conceded that the company wanted , time to evaluate, but had serious doubts, because of the long history and the occasional discharge of raw effluent. “This pollution problem was recognised in 1956, but had not been diminished,” said Mr Hardy, claiming that the pollution had actually increased one-third. He asked that, if the right was granted, conditions should be enforced to ensure all discharges complied, at least, with Class D standards. Mr Cranko said that he was by no means satisfied that the smolt had been killed by fellmongery wastes. The fish had died at times when the fellmongery was not discharging. Mr Hardy said there was

no record of pollution above the fellmongery. The Ministry had carried on the hatchery, knowing that fish would be killed, but hoping that the pollution would be abated. Mr Connor said that the discovery of 366 dead smolt of a release of 230,000 last November was scarcely worth recording. About 1 per cent of the smolt could be expected to survive, and return as mature salmon, said Mr Hardy. The first adults could he expected back at Kaiapoi — one had already arrived — up to May or June. Conditions in the lower Waimakariri and Kaiapoi rivers reflected little credit on all the main dischargers of pollutants, said Mr R G. Amer, chairman of the Friends of the Waimakariri. The board itself, said Mr Amer, must have some responsibility, because of its “hands off” policy with the i ain polluters, while farmers and lesser polluters had, rightly, been forced to act. The group he said, supported the Ministry’s request for systematic water quality testing by the company, and for controls over the nature and rates of discharge. The company should also be required to pursue effective waste treatment.