Push to put more waste into river

New Zealand Pharmaceuticals wants to increase the amount of heavy metal it sends into the Manawatu River.

The company also wants to continue pumping waste, which has not been treated to a high-enough standard, into the river until October. This waste includes bile pigments and fatty acids.

Possible changes to its resource consent will be debated at a pre-hearing meeting, held by Horizons Regional Council.

At this stage, scientific evidence in hearing documents suggest the quantities of heavy metal – chromium – will not be enough to do serious harm to the river's struggling ecosystem.

But some submitters have opposed New Zealand Pharmaceuticals' requests for consent changes, including Department of Conservation, ecologist Mike Joy, Manawatu Estuary Trust, and Water and Environmental Care Association.

The opposing submitters say any extra pollution in the river is too much.

New Zealand Pharmaceuticals was meant to have a proper waste treatment solution in place by the start of next month.

The waste the company pours into the river is stormwater, cooling water and process water, created in the process of making pharmaceuticals at the plant.

The company's discharge consent from Horizons Regional Council now lets it put up to 2400 cubic metres of cooling water into the Manawatu River every day.

The bore water it uses as cooling water may contain low concentrations of chromium, so the company is allowed to discharge up to 0.007 grams of the metal a cubic metre of cooling water.

But the company's own recent testing has shown chromium is escaping into the river through the company's process water as well. This means it is putting more chromium in the river than it is allowed to do.

The company is asking to be allowed to discharge six grams of chromium from its process water each day as well.

Aquanet Consulting senior water quality scientist Olivier Ausseil, hired to give Horizons expert advice on the consent's request, said more testing needs to be done to see just how much chromium is getting into the river and where it is coming from.

But at this stage he doubts it would have any effect on fish in the river.

A discharge of 6 grams a day could result in a maximum concentration increase in the river of 0.022 milligrams grams a cubic metre, well below the national standards of one milligram, he said.

The risk can sometimes be that the chromium could build up in sediment, but because the Manawatu River is reasonably fast flowing it flushes the sediment regularly.

In addition, the total oxygen demand that New Zealand Pharmaceuticals waste puts on the river is not meant to exceed more than 30kg a day.

But due to delays in the work on its treatment plant, the company wants to be allowed to take up to 300kg a day of the river's oxygen demand until October.

Council regional planning and regulatory group manager Greg Carlyon said he was happy with the steps the company had taken to try to get its treatment plant up to scratch, so is prepared to give the company extra time.

As for the extra chromium, it was not enough to worry about, he said.

New Zealand Pharmaceuticals managing director Richard Garland said about $1 million had been spent upgrading the factory's treatment plant, but it had taken longer than expected to complete.

"Because we have different processes on different days it is difficult to have the right chemical balance in the waste treatment plant," he said.

The pre-hearing meeting is set down for Tuesday at 12.30pm at Caccia Birch House in Palmerston North.

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