It stores some of its products in one of RMD\u2019s sheds.<\/p>\n
Council compliance manager Stephen Mellor said the council\u2019s pollution hotline and Report It platform received 25 complaints from June 4 to July 2 about offensive odours.<\/p>\n
These included complaints of \u201ctoxic dust\u201d coming from Aerodrome Rd and that it was \u201cvery difficult\u201d to breathe.<\/p>\n
One complaint said that for two to three weeks, an odour \u201cstrong enough to cause nausea\u201d was present in the Hewletts Rd, MacDonald St and Aviation Ave area.<\/p>\n
Another complainant stated the \u201ctoxic odour\u201d had made some of their staff \u201cfeel sick\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery salty, rotten, sickly. Almost like rotten vinegar \u2026 Gets to the point of gagging,\u201d another complained. <\/p>\n
Mellor said the council traced the smell to an RMD shed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround 800 tonnes of the product were removed from within the large pile as it got heated to around 65C and it was emanating a very strong acrid and foul odour.\u201d<\/p>\n
The product, a large volume of Bunge\u2019s Distiller\u2019s Dried Grains with Soluble, had begun heating and fermenting while in storage.<\/p>\n
RMD Transport Ltd’s bulk storage facility on Aerodrome Rd in Mount Maunganui. Photo \/ Bay of Plenty Regional Council<\/p>\n
He said this was \u201cmost likely\u201d because of moisture contamination during transport or storage. <\/p>\n
Mellor said the offensive odours affected nearby properties for several days. The material was isolated, cooled and removed from the site.<\/p>\n
Mellor said the discharge breached the Resource Management Act and the regional plan. The latter stated a discharge to air must not \u201ccause any offensive or objectionable effect beyond the boundary of the subject site\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mellor said the unauthorised discharges confirmed on June 30 breached abatement notices previously issued to both companies. <\/p>\n
The companies were each issued two $4000 fines for the offensive odour and abatement notice breach.<\/p>\n
Mellor said most businesses across Mount Maunganui\u2019s industrial area were \u201cmaking a genuine effort\u201d to meet their obligations and reduce dust and odour.<\/p>\n
\u201cMonitoring shows that effort is paying off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this discharge was an isolated incident, the rules designed to reduce odour are clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important for organisations that fail to meet their obligations to be held to account.\u201d<\/p>\n
RMD Transport and Bunge New Zealand were approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Sandra Conchie is a senior journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post and has been a journalist for more than 26 years. She mainly covers police, court and other justice stories, as well as general news. She has been a Canon Media Awards regional\/community reporter of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It stores some of its products in one of RMD\u2019s sheds. Council compliance manager Stephen Mellor said the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,8556,30701,19631,78,17707,13233,111,43,139,69,45214,46611,17177,48047],"class_list":["post-629659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-companies","tag-complaints","tag-fined","tag-in","tag-maunganui","tag-mount","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-odour","tag-offensive","tag-operating","tag-prompts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}