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HBRC prosecutes Te Mata Mushrooms for offensive odour

16 June 2015

HBRC prosecutes Te Mata Mushrooms for offensive odour


Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is prosecuting Te Mata Mushroom Company of Havelock North with discharging offensive and objectionable odour from its property in Brookvale Road, Havelock North on six different dates in March and April of this year.

The odour comes from the process of making compost for the growing of mushrooms. Part of the process is performed outdoors and involves mixing straw, chicken manure, gypsum and water that produces a chemical reaction that results in fermentation and the production of odour.

The Company was granted a resource consent in 2012 that required them to construct a building or buildings with an appropriate ventilation and biofilter system that fully enclosed the composting process, by the 1st March of this year. No such construction has been initiated to date.

Local residents have made numerous complaints to the Council regarding the composting odour and Council Officers have visited the area and carried out odour assessments that have determined the odours to be offensive and objectionable beyond the Mushroom Company’s boundary.

“We are not in the business of closing companies down,” says Regional Council Manager of Resource Use, Wayne Wright.

“Local residents have a right to enjoy going about their normal activities in their homes, without having to restrict outdoor activities and keep doors and windows closed. We need to balance those rights with those of Te Mata Mushrooms to operate and contribute to the local economy,” adds Mr Wright.

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“Council has been working with Te Mata Mushrooms in an effort to have them comply with their resource consent but the lack of progress and failure to prevent the odours beyond the property boundary has resulted in this course of action,” Mr Wright says.

“There is a degree of sympathy for the company given that the number of residential dwellings in the area has increased markedly, but that does not remove the company’s responsibility to modify how it operates to meet the changing expectations of the community”.

ends

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