Meat processor kicks up a stink over record odour fine

A large North Island meat and rendering processor has copped a record fine for breaching odour standards - but Wallace Corporation's managing director says the company will fight the decision, which he labels "obscene".

The company was fined $80,000 by Environment Court judge C.J. Thompson for discharging objectionable smells from its industrial premises at Waitoa, east of Te Aroha.

Environment Waikato released details of the court's findings yesterday.

Company head James Wallace reacted with disbelief to the hefty fine under the Resource Management Act.

"We are going to appeal because we think it's obscene.

"Certainly we are constantly doing an extraordinary amount of work protecting the environment of the Waikato.

"We [annually] take in 26,000 cows that would otherwise be lying dead around the Waikato, and we also bring together 250,000 calves and render them."

The remains were used to produce biological by-products exported to Asia, mainly to Indonesia.

Judge Thompson said the company had breached numerous resource consents for air discharge.

Neighbours' expectations of being able to enjoy normal outdoor living "was completely disrupted by odours of the most repellent kind", he said. "Rural environments, as we all know, are certainly not immune from disturbance and noise, odour and that sort of thing - they are not necessarily pristine."

But he added that neighbours were entitled to expect that consent conditions were complied with.

The company had been "careless" in its failure to put in place systems for meeting environmental requirements.

Mr Wallace said his company had continued to spend "millions" upgrading systems to improve the site.

Earlier this year, Environment Waikato pushed for prosecution against Perry Environmental and Hamilton City Council for odour breaches at the Horotiu dump.