Fonterra told to lift its game

Fonterra has been told it must improve environmental performance at its biggest dairy factory after a series of illegal coastal discharges.

The company's Whareroa plant recorded nine accidental spills last year, causing thousands of litres of milk products to flow untreated into the sea.

In one instance, 700 litres of a butter substance was discharged through the plant's ocean outfall and washed up on 4.6km of Ohawe Beach near Hawera.

Fonterra explained the breach was caused by equipment failure and undertook an immediate clean-up of the foreshore area.

But, in early September 110,000 litres of skim milk was flushed through the same pipe and on to the same coastline due to an operator error.

The Taranaki Regional Council fined Fonterra $750 and ordered the company to clean up the scum from the beach. It was also required to undertake works to prevent further spills in the future.

However, just a few weeks later, 13,000 litres of milk was washed through the outfall, creating a visible plume with some of it turning up on the beaches.

Fonterra was fined $750 and had to produce an incident report for the regional council.

TRC environment director Gary Bedford said it wasn't the dollar value of the fine that would deter Fonterra from further breaches but the fact it was in the public arena.

"They have a long history of improvement. And they do tend to self-report everything that happens, meaning we have to log it in and report on it. Not all of the incidents were completely bad," Mr Bedford said. "However they have been drifting into poor performance and we are recommending they meet their resource consents as required by law."

Whareroa Hub operations manager Mike Corbett said the company operated on full disclosure, sometimes to its disadvantage.

"Although we are a big site we have to continue to lift our game." Mr Corbett said.

"Any event of non-compliance we take very seriously. We've always got room to improve."

Some of the breaches were due to events outside the plant's control, such as the loss of power supply, he said.

Fonterra holds 25 resource consents relating to the Whareroa site, which include a total of 219 conditions.

The site produces 378,000 metric tonnes of milk products annually, with a peak milk processing capacity of 14 million litres per day.

- © Fairfax NZ News