Council cries foul over factory's spilt milk

A new Tauranga factory has been ordered to clean up its act after spilling milk into the city stormwater system last week.
New Zealand Dairy Processing is being investigated after Tauranga City Council officers were tipped off and arrived at the Maleme St site last Wednesday morning to find milk had spilled into a nearby storm drain.
The Bay of Plenty Regional Council had since served the company with abatement notices that laid out compulsory actions to improve its operation, council water-management group manager Eddie Grogan said.
"What we are saying to the company is that if it's comfortable that it can take these certain actions, we won't have any problems."
The actions included ensuring there were no overflows from waste tanks and no discharges to stormwater systems.
The regional council was still gathering evidence on the incident and would soon assess whether the company was complying with the notices, Mr Grogan said.
"The collection of evidence is a process that we take very carefully, and we need to be cautious about that.
"We are talking with the company and they are being helpful."
Once the council had gathered its evidence - which was expected to take a "lengthy amount of time" - it would report back to the council with a recommendation for the next step, Mr Grogan said.
Discharging contaminants to city stormwater drains is illegal under the Tauranga City Council's Stormwater Pollution Prevention Bylaw and under the Resource Management Act enforced by the city council and regional council.
Penalties under the Act range from a $1000 infringement notice to a maximum penalty of $600,000.
Tauranga City Council pollution prevention officer Toby Barach said the water in the storm drain had been tested but results were not due back until later this week.
However, other tests of bacterial counts in the water had not shown any significant health risk to people, he said.
Fears of fish deaths as a result of the spill had been unfounded.
New Zealand Dairy Processing general manager Stuart Gouk said the company had undertaken its own investigation and estimated that just 10 litres of diluted milk had escaped into the storm drain.
Mr Gouk said the company had spent $4 million "resolving issues" at the site, which was still being commissioned.
"The other thing is that we are quite a large employer of local people, and we want to look after the economic environment as well as the natural environment."
The new factory was expected to inject $6 million into the local economy in employment alone, he said.
Chinese-backed New Zealand Dairy Processing has spent recent months converting the former Maleme St pet food plant into a long-life milk processing facility.
The company was incorporated on July 30 last year and May Wang, who fronted Hong Kong-listed Natural Dairy's bid to buy the 16 Crafar farms, was named the only director.