Effluent right seen as essential

Press, 18 December 1982, Page 2

Effluent right seen as essential

The Canterbury Frozen Meat Company's works at Belfast would have to close if the company could not discharge treated effluent into the Waimakariri River, a special tribunal was told yesterday.

In his final submissions to the tribunal on C.F.M.'s water right application, the company's counsel. Mr R. E. Wylie, said that a meat works could not function without a means of disposal of effluent. "Other methods of effluent disposal were somewhat faintly suggested during the hearings ... but no serious alternative to river disposal could be advanced,” he said.

The hearing of final submissions ended yesterday. The tribunal, comprising Mr P. T. Mahon (chairman), Professor A. G. Williamson, and Messrs J. 0. Dixon and J. W. Levy, will present its recommendation to the North Canterbury Catchment Board next year. Mr Wylie told the tribunal that most of the objectors did not oppose the granting of any rights but had wanted to ensure that adequate limits and conditions were imposed to protect the river for the public or their own particular interests. Some objectors, who had originally opposed the application "with some vehemence” later modified their stance when they understood the “significant" changes to take place with the installation of the chemical treatment plant. Some objectors would have eliminated industrial use, and specifically C.F.M., but this was not in accord with the objects of the Soil and Water Conservation Act, Mr Wylie said. Many were concerned about what they thought to be a serious health hazard but the evidence had shown this did not exist.

The main part of the objection by the Christchurch Drainage Board had been that the proposed board plant would have produced a better-quality effluent than would be produced by C.F.M.’s plant. “That point has never been in dispute, but it is submitted that that factor is quite irrelevant,” Mr Wylie said. Whether the proposed C.F.M. discharge would meet the requirements of the Soil and Water Conservation Act was the issue. A “considerable” number of witnesses spoke of the importance of the two C.F.Mi works in relation to the North Canterbury farming community, the large labourforce employed, and the economy of Belfast and Kaiapoi, he said. “Closing of the works would have the most serious consequences to the whole community, not only locally, but in the national sense as well.”

The public interest required the rights to be granted, said Mr Wylie.

The proposed method of treating and discharging effluent from the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company works into the Waimakariri River was “novel and unproven" a special tribunal was told in Christchurch on Thursday. In making his final submission on the water right application. Mr N. V. Taylor, representing the North Canterbury Catchment Board,

said that the method had been tested for three months i in a "garbage can experiment.”

If the tribunal was not satisfied that the plant would consistently produce acceptable levels of effluent, it should either recommend the application be refused or call for further evidence as to the suitability of the plant or alternative plants, said Mr Taylor.

If the tribunal did not refuse the application but still had doubts about the ability of the plant to produce acceptable effluent a two-year trial period should be held on the first stage of the plant, which should be working by October, 1985. Mr Taylor said C.F.M. had said that the board's witnesses and United State standards in use in New Zealand were too conservative in their approach to the effects of pollution levels but had not been able to offer answers.

He said that C.F.M. and board witnesses disagreed as to the amount of water available to the company at low river flows, the amount of some pollutants allowed in the river, and their effect on fish.

He submitted that the

tribunal could impose conditions to give a water quality higher than the legal minimum.

“If ever there was a case for imposing higher standards than the minimum, this must be it because of the need to take adequate account of the values associated with recreation and fish life," Mr Taylor said. It was accepted that the river was the appropriate vehicle to carry away the waste of C.F.M. but the tribunal had to decide to what extent the company should be allowed to pollute the river.

With progressive improvement of the effluent, the river would be in a better condition than before, but what the public interest demanded as a suitable standard for water quality should be considered, Mr Taylor said.

Mr Taylor sought reimbursement by C.F.M. for the costs associated with the tribunal. He said that $18,900 was a conservative estimate. In his submission, Mr Wylie said that the legislation, and therefore the tribunal, was concerned only with the

effect of the discharge into the river and not with the method by which the discharge was treated. He accepted that the tribunal could impose higher standards of water quality but only when they were necessary. It was entirely at the tribunal’s discretion. “If the tribunal feels disposed to impose such higher standards, it should only do so to preserve the quality of the receiving waters as a whole, not merely for the sake of achieving a higher level of water quality than the legislature has seen fit to impose,” he said.

Evidence before the tribunal had established that there would be "no destruction of aquatic life" but it would, be inappropriate to apply this to the life of a single fish. Taken in context “aquatic life” must be taken in its collective sense and that “destruction" was not a word normally used for a single death, Mr Wylie submitted. He disputed fears that the effluent could form a “toxic barrier” across the river, preventing fish from swimming upstream. By the time the effluent had spread across the width of the river it would have diluted to a non-toxic level. Until that time there would always be a passage through which fish could swim upstream. The tribunal, comprises Mr P. T. Mahon (chairman). Professor A. G. Williamson, and Messrs M. J. O. Dixon and J. W. Levy.