Council has approved a tradewaste agreement with Ashburton Meat Processors, giving conditional consent for them to discharge factory wastewater into Ashburton’s urban wastewater scheme.

There is capacity in the scheme to handle the discharge and it means the meat processor will no longer discharge wastewater onto land.

Chief Executive Hamish Riach said Ashburton Meat Processors (AMP) would initially pay $5.5 million, plus GST, for the discharge consent.

“This development contribution will cover the cost of work Council will need to do at the Wilkins Road Treatment Plant to upgrade the facilities to handle the extra discharge.

“AMP will also pay for a pump station and pipe from their Bridge Street plant to the intersection of Bridge and Kitchener Street, where their wastewater will enter the network.”

Council and AMP have been talking about a tradewaste agreement since 2021, as the meat plant’s discharge consent expires in November 2028.

Mr Riach said it was a good outcome for the environment as well as for the district and AMP, which employed a large staff and had plans for expansion.

“The AMP discharge will also not trigger any need to vary existing resource consents Council has for Wilkins Road and Ocean Farm.”

The conditional consent is for 10 years and AMP will also invest in a holding tank onsite, to create a storage buffer.

New work at Wilkins Road will include the installation of a moving bed biological reactor (or a similar system), which is focussed on reducing the additional nitrate loading arising from the AMP discharge.