Firms fined for breaches of the rules over odour
Thousands of dollars in fines have been issued against two meat processing plants in Timaru for the odours they have continued to produce.
A slew of complaints about offal and meat-rendering type smells produced by the South Canterbury By-Products plant in Washdyke, and the Alliance Smithfield plant in Waimataitai led to both being issued with an abatement notice.
Environment Canterbury issued the notices to ensure both plants complied with their resource consent so that odours produced by the plants could only be detected within a specific distance of their sites.
ECan southern zones manager Michael Hide said South Canterbury By-Products had continued to fall foul of the abatement and its resource consent.
The company had since been fined a total of $3500 for two incidents where it had breached the consent and the abatement.
Hide said a $1000 fine was issued every time resource consent rules were broken, with a $750 fine every time an notice was breached.
The Alliance Smithfield plant, in Waimataitai, was also fined $1000 for breaking the terms of its resource consent.
Hide said a ‘‘recently discovered’’ issue at South Canterbury By-Products which might have been contributing to some of the problems may have been resolved.
The level of complaints had ‘‘certainly dropped off’’ in the last week or two, something Hide said could be down to ‘‘some of the changes’’ made. abatement
Waimataitai resident Clive Shaw was one of those who previously expressed concern over the smell.
Shaw previously planned to arrange a meeting with Timaru Mayor Damon Odey and someone from ECan to try and resolve the issue.
On Wednesday, Shaw said he decided to let the matter rest after contacting Alliance Smithfield, who said they were working to resolve the problem.
Alliance Group general manager processing Kerry Stevens said the company was ‘‘obviously disappointed’’ with the infringement notice and fine.
‘‘Following our own internal investigation, and a comprehensive review of our processing systems ... we carried out a range of measures including maintenance of our odour capture systems.
‘‘We did identify some blockages in parts of the odour capture system and these have now been rectified.’’
South Canterbury By-Products general manager Shannon Swete they had rectified an issue at the plant which had contributed to the infringement being issued.