Molasses storage a sticky issue

A South Island animal feed company is looking to expand by storing additional imports of molasses on farmland on the eastern outskirts of Tauranga.
Winton Stock Feed wants to establish a storage and mixing centre behind the old service station near the State Highway Two and Welcome Bay Rd intersection at Papamoa.
Its resource consent application was considered by the Tauranga City Council yesterday. Winton Stock Feed, which supplies the primary agricultural industry around the country, is seeking a discretionary activity in a rural zone. Panel chairman Wayne Moultrie and fellow commissioners David Stewart and Bill Grainger visited the eight-hectare site, and will release their decision within 15 days.
Two neighbours opposed the application because of concerns about noise, ground vibrations and traffic congestion generated by truck movements. The Ministry of Education, which runs the nearby Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Kura Kokiri School, remained neutral but said that without an assessment there was uncertainty about noise effects. The plan was supported by the New Zealand Transport Agency.
Winton Stock Feed, a privately owned business founded in Southland in 1988, has been importing up to 1600 tonnes of molasses a year to its Mount Maunganui Portside Drive depot. But it wants a back-up storage area for up to 14,000 tonnes of its imports from Fiji and the Philippines - making Tauranga its biggest distribution centre.
Nelson Lindsay, a director of Winton Stock Feed, told the council's hearings panel the new facility would give the company security to unload a bulk ship. "We have never done one yet, but we want to be in a position to be able to do that."
On present demand, up to 8000 tonnes would be stored at the Papamoa facility, requiring about 1280 truck movements to and from the site in one year. Unloading a shipment of 8000 tonnes would require 600 truck movements, in and out, over a 36-hour period.
Peter Linde, planning consultant for Winton Stock Feed, said supply could be sporadic; large volumes at irregular intervals and at short notice.
There were high costs associated with how long a ship was docked at port ($24,000 a day) and it was prudent to unload molasses quickly to minimise port costs, he said.
The molasses, a thick, dark brown liquid and a byproduct of sugar refining, would be stored in a five-metre-deep pit taking up 1500sq m of the site.
The pit would be surrounded by an earth bund for support and, full, the molasses would at best be level with the top of the bund.
The molasses - its high sugar and low protein content stimulates livestock appetite and helps increase cows' milk production - would be stored in a polypropylene containment system that worked in a similar way to an inflatable pillow. When the storage area was empty, the polypropylene would sit on the bottom and rise as the molasses was fed in.
Beside the pit would be a processing/mixing facility that would look like four six-metre containers, with pipes connecting to the bund. The adjacent service station was now used for 24-hour truck fuelling, and there was also a panelbeater and small cafe.
Winton Stock Feed is one of two companies importing molasses, through eight ports, and it has distribution centres at the Mount, New Plymouth, Takaka, Christchurch, Timaru and Invercargill.