Wet industries under scrutiny

Wanganui district councillors want to tour the city's wet industries to see for themselves how those companies handle their waste before discharging it into the city's wastewater treatment system.

Plenty of criticism has been levelled at those half dozen industries since major problems with the wastewater treatment plant emerged last December.

Those industries will now have to pay 40 per cent more in annual discharge fees as well as work under a new bylaw council is going to draft.

At this week's infrastructure and property committee meeting Councillors Philippa Baker-Hogan and Rob Vinsen pushed to have the industries come to city hall to discuss wastewater issues.

But that idea did not get any support when put to the vote and instead the committee is recommending councillors visit the Castlecliff sites.

Mr Vinsen said the report on the city's wastewater treatment plant prepared by consulting engineers Cardno BTO had given the wet industries pre-treatment systems "a cursory look only".

"Before we spend $24 million on the upgrade, this council needs to know if a change in pre-treatment processes by those industries would make a difference."

Mark Hughes, council's infrastructure manager, said under the existing trade waste bylaw council could not tell those industries how they must operate.

"But our new bylaw will tell them what the treatment system will accept from them," Mr Hughes said.

He said the options currently were stark.

"We either take their waste or they close down. It's that simple."

He said by increasing discharge fees from $1.6 million annually to $2.25 million - as the council's 2013-14 Annual Plan does - those industries would be looking closely at pre-treatment or trucking more of their waste to landfills and bypassing the city's treatment plant.

"We have to throw out the old bylaw and bring in one that incentivises them to look at upgrading their pre-treatment," Mr Hughes said.

The council's trade waste bylaw was introduced mid-2008, the year after the treatment plant began operating, replacing an earlier bylaw drawn up in 1988.

The 2008 bylaw does not make any of the wet industries liable for a fine if they breached their discharge consent and council has learned that all the industries had at some stage been guilty of breaches since the plant started operating in 2007.

Councillor Sue Westwood said she favoured a bylaw that focused on less toxic waste going into the system and if that happened then council could lower the discharge fee.

"This council, Horizons Regional Council and the industries need to sit down and talk this through. What would we lose by having those discussions? It's in everyone's interest to achieve that," Mrs Westwood said.

No date has been set for councillors to visit the sites.