Annual report 2006-2007 - Taranaki Regional Council

87
9. Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited
9.1 Process description
Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited operates a fully enclosed fertiliser storage facility on
Monmouth Road, near the corner with State Highway 3, just north of Stratford.
Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited is a major New Zealand manufacturer and distributor
of fertiliser products, providing millions of tonnes of product to the agricultural sector
nationally each year. Since 1998, Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited has expanded its
activities into the Taranaki region, establishing distribution facilities at Bell Block,
Pungarehu and Kapuni. The facility in Stratford was constructed in 2004, and
operations began shortly afterward.
The activities on site include the receiving of bulk products into the store by road
transport, which dump the product directly into the bulk products bins within the
building. All products are therefore received and despatched from within the confines
of the building.
Clean stormwater from the site, such as that sourced from the roofs, is directed to a
roadside drain. Stormwater from the yard areas, which has the potential to contain
some nutrients, is directed to a concrete sump that retains any solid material that is
washed from the yard. Water flows from this sump to a large stormwater retention
pond north of the yard. Effluent in this pond soaks away to ground, with nutrients
such as ammonia and phosphate either evaporating or being taken up by plant life
within and around the edges of the pond. More mobile nutrients such as potassium
and sulphate leave the pond with the stormwater. At times of significant rainfall, there
is the potential for effluent to flow in to an unnamed tributary of the Kahouri Stream,
herein referred to as the ‘abattoir tributary’. This discharge would enter this tributary
downstream of the abattoir wastewater discharge.
9.2 Resource consents
9.2.1 Water discharge permit
Section 15(1)(a) and (b) of the Resource Management Act stipulates that no person
may discharge any contaminant into water, or onto or into land in circumstances
which may result in that contaminant (or any other contaminant emanating as a
result of natural processes from that contaminant) entering water unless the activity
is expressly allowed for by a resource consent or a rule in a regional plan, or by
national regulations.
Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited holds discharge permit 6217 to cover the discharge of
stormwater from a fertiliser storage and distribution facility onto and into land and
into an unnamed tributary of the Kahouri Stream. This permit was issued by the
Taranaki Regional Council on 20 November 2003 under Section 87(e) of the Resource
Management Act. It is due to expire on 1 June 2022.
Special conditions 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 define operational requirements including adopting
the best practicable option and allowable volume.
Special conditions 3 and 4 define the maximum levels of total recoverable
hydrocarbons and suspended solids that are to be contained in the discharge, and