Water bottler’s arguable claims

Chinese consumers will soon be drinking water from an old wool scour in industrial Christchurch, but they may be confused about where it comes from.

‘‘Cloud Ocean Estate’’ spring water will be drawn from the city’s aquifers in a factory where sheep wool was once chemically cleansed of contaminants – but, as it’s described in its packaging, it comes from a ‘‘200-metre deep underground aquifer from renowned Caterbury [sic]’’.

Boxes featuring the misspelling were unloaded from trucks in large numbers at the plant, which is gearing up to pump water. The site has a rail siding, allowing large volumes of water to be moved en masse.

The plant’s China-based owners, Cloud Ocean Water, received official permission from Environment Canterbury (ECan) on Thursday to bottle the water it is already allowed to extract, amounting to about 1.5 billion litres per year.

It inherited the take from the former wool scour and applied for a variation allowing it to bottle the water.

Use of the water will likely cost the company only several hundred dollars per year.

It is unclear if the water will be taken from 200 metres deep, as advertised on the packaging. The company only has permission to bottle water from its existing bore, which is about 30m deep.

It has consent to drill a 200m deep bore, but the Christchurch City Council has raised concerns about interference with its own bores if water was drawn from that depth. The company has not yet applied to take water from the deeper bore.

There was community opposition to granting the bottling consent, primarily through a petition with about 70,000 signatures. Lawyer Peter Richardson also challenged it, citing the effect of the cumulative impact on water levels.

In its decision, however, ECan said there was no reason under the Resource Management Act not to grant the consent, as the water take had been consented long ago and it cannot discriminate based on the planned usage of water.

‘‘Environment Canterbury’s role is to look at the volume of water being taken and the environmental effect of taking and using that water. It’s not our role to make a judgment on the merits of the purpose for which the water is sought,’’ said operational support manager Tania Harris.

The packaging, which features both English and Chinese script, also claims the water is more than 1000 years old, and features a heavily processed image of Aoraki/Mt Cook.

Research has found that some of the deeper aquifer water may be over a thousand years old, but the average age is much lower. The water’s primary source is the Waimakariri River, about 100 kilometres away from Aoraki/Mt Cook.

As concerns were raised about the plant’s water use, a parallel issue arose with what appeared to be routinely unsafe work practices, described by contractors who had been inside. They included workers precariously balancing on heavy machinery while welding, people sleeping in boxes, and workers unable to operate equipment.

It is understood five agencies have raised issues at the site, ranging from waste disposal to workers trespassing on the nearby train yard. WorkSafe had issued eight notices for a range of breaches. A WorkSafe spokesperson said an inspector had visited again and found five of the eight notices had been addressed. The company had until the end of January to comply with the other three.

Cloud Ocean Water’s New Zealand based director, Feng Liang, previously declined to comment on the work safety practices. On Thursday, he referred a request for comment to Silvereye Communications, a Wellington-based public relations and crisis management firm.

In a statement attributed to a spokesperson, Cloud Ocean Water said: ‘‘All our construction contractors are local firms and in the last three months we have spent $3 million on refurbishing a previously dilapidated and disused former wool scourers site. We anticipate the plant will create more than 200 local jobs once up and running.’’

They said the company was working with local health-and-safety consultants and the Christchurch City Council to address issues at the site.

A neighbouring water-bottling plant is under construction and has consent to take about 7.4 billion litres per year.