Burdon mushroom firm in bad odour with council

Environment Waikato has laid 21 charges against "a Christchurch-based company" - understood to be Meadow Mushrooms - for unlawful discharges of objectionable odour.

Meadow Mushrooms is partly owned by former National Party Cabinet Minister Philip Burdon.

The charges were laid last Friday following a six-month investigation by Environment Waikato staff.

The alleged discharges occurred between March and August this year at the company's Morrinsville site, the regional council said.

The site referred to is NZ Mushrooms, a subsidiary of Meadow Mushrooms, on the corner of Snell St and Avenue Rd. Meadow Mushrooms chief executive Roger Young said his company had been advised by Environment Waikato that prosecutions were pending. "We are awaiting the detail of that."

He did not know the detail of the prosecutions but said "I think there's quite a long public record.

"We had applied to renew our resource consent and that consent was granted last year and appeals were lodged against it. So that's probably the framework."

Mr Young said he did not want to comment on whether his company had done everything it could to end the foul smells complained about.

"Given a hearing pending in the Environment Court it's probably not appropriate to comment on that."

Neighbouring farmer Tony Gray, a member of the Waikato Environment Protection Society, said while he was pleased the regional council was taking action it was "11 years too late".

Mushrooms are grown with the aid of compost and Mr Gray said that is where the smell came from.

"Good compost should not smell, end of story."

He described the odours as "vile and gut-wrenching. One of the most offensive smells we have is one that smells like a dead, rotting fish. It is particularly offensive to farmers and we get the normal rural smells of cows and silage."

Mr Gray said wastewater that looked like "black, filthy leachate" was discharged from the site into streams that fed in to the Piako River. The river spills into the Firth of Thames.

Last November meat company Wallace Corporation received an $80,000 fine from the Environment Court for illegal odour discharges from its industrial premises at Waitoa, east of Te Aroha.

The fine was cut to $47,000 on appeal.

Last October Mr Young assured neighbours that NZ Mushrooms would comply with consent conditions and a large-scale expansion of the site's operations would not begin until that was achieved.

The company is due to appear in the Morrinsville District Court on October 11.