Firm backs under-fire plant
Waste-to-energy project ‘appropriate, compliant and safe’
Aplan to build a waste-toenergy plant in Waikato that burns rubbish to create electricity is now open for public consultation. The proposed plant would be built at 401 Racecourse Rd, Te Awamutu, between the racecourse and Fonterra effluent ponds.
It would burn 150,000 tonnes of waste annually, sourced from councils across Waikato and generate 15MW of electricity, enough to power about 14,000 average-sized households.
Hamilton-based company Global Contracting Solutions is behind the proposal and initially lodged an application for a non-notified resource consent.
Waipā District Council growth and regulatory services group manager Wayne Allan said the project needed to be notified because it did not comply with rules relating to earthworks, noise, building setbacks, chimney stack height, landscaping and screening and vehicle entrance separation.
It also has resource consents pending with Waikato Regional Council relating to discharge of contaminants into the air, discharge of stormwater, and the disposal of clean fill.
Material accepted into the facility would include end-of-life tyres, industrial waste, regionally sourced municipal solid waste and plastic. The plant would operate 24/7.
Opposition to the plant has included concerns about toxins and greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere, and the location, close to residential housing, schools and food businesses.
Zero Waste Network general manager Dorte Wray believed the plant could have a “dramatic climate impact”.
“Incinerators are just another form of disposal like landfill.”
Global Contracting Solutions project manager Adam Fletcher said the emissions “are so small as to be hardly measurable . . . the monitoring of emissions over the past decade has got better and better as technology improved. Just about the only reason that emissions are not zero is simply because the monitoring is so good.
“You can’t get away with being a poor corporate citizen these days. We specifically designed [the plant] to be appropriate and compliant and safe,” Fletcher said.
Wray said the proposal did not provide “the future we want”. “You need to feed the beast. You need waste to keep the incinerator going.
“We don’t think it’s the right direction . . . These kinds of projects require significant investment [which] could be better used elsewhere. Waipā District Council and the Waikato Regional Council both have good waste minimisation plans and I would be supporting those.”
Wray said the network’s focus was now on “getting submissions in”.
“We worked with the Feilding community and mana whenua to stop the waste-to-energy proposal in Feilding. We will do the same in Te Awamutu.”
Waipā Māori Ward councillor Dale-Maree Morgan was involved with the action group Don’t Burn Waipā, prior to becoming a councillor. She said she now had to listen to her constituents.
“But the feedback that I got from them is that they don’t want this in their backyard.”
Morgan said she and the majority of her constituents shared the Zero Waste Network’s concerns.
In its application, Global Contracting Solutions said air discharges were “benign”. Fletcher said the plant’s emissions would be within the permitted range allowed under the Resource Management Act.
When asked about concerns related to the location, Fletcher said the company had visited waste-toenergy facilities overseas, including in Germany and Singapore.
“There are a number of these plants in proximity to foodproduction facilities and the centre of city townships and shopping malls around the world. Those facilities have been judged as acceptable [by the countries they are built in].”
In response to concerns about the floodplain, Fletcher said it was not going to be built on low-lying land.
“We’re above the 100-year flood level limit, as required by the regional council rules.”
Global Contracting Solutions’ project chair Roger Wilson said the company did not want to do “anything that is harmful to people”.
“We want to fit in with the environment.”
He said the company did not want to incinerate waste that should be recycled.
“We’re not here to discourage recycling. We’re here to handle the waste products that are currently destined for landfill . . . Recycling should [continue to] happen, we support product design that reduces waste, [but] in the meantime [other] waste has to have a destination.”
Asked about previous waste-to
energy plant proposals in Meremere and Feilding, Fletcher said Feilding was a different technology and approach than Te Awamutu.
“Meremere was before its time and the consenting and technology process was inappropriate at the time. The technology was much older.”
Wilson said one of their consultants had not supported Meremere, “but has come on board with our project”.
Global Contracting Solutions was now engaging with the community, including a meeting with the Te Awamutu Community Board next week, and had approached local schools, Fonterra, Te Wānanga, and the administrators of the Te Awamutu Racecourse to talk to them.
“We are hopeful of getting this proposal over the line; we think it’s the right thing to do,” Wilson said.
Asked if the company planned to build the plant elsewhere, if Te Awamutu wasn’t approved, Fletcher said they would “cross that bridge when we come to it”.
The Waikato Herald approached Fonterra for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.
If successful, Global Contracting Solutions hopes to start earthworks in September next year. The plant could be fully operational by 2027.
The company is seeking a resource consent from the Waikato Regional Council relating to the discharge of contaminants into the air, discharge of stormwater and disposal of clean fill from the proposed plant.
The applications will be assessed via a joint hearing.
Waipā District Council and Waikato Regional Council will appoint a hearing panel of independent commissioners to decide whether the plant can go ahead. Local councillors won’t be directly involved.
The commissioners, likely to be appointed in October, will assess the applications and consider public submissions, but probably not until the first half of 2024.
More information is available via the Waipā District Council website. Submissions can be made online and close on October 13.
Action group Don’t Burn Waipā will run a public meeting on Tuesday, September 26 at 6.30pm at the Te Awamutu Library. There will also be a public workshop via Zoom on October 3 at 7pm to go through the submission process.