Whose Discharge is this? Collaboration between a Port and a City

The Port of Tauranga has 115 hectares of land at Mount Maunganui which includes land currently used for wharf activities and the surrounding land used by industries supporting the Port. It is located on the eastern edge of Te Awanui (Tauranga Harbour) in the heart of Tauranga’s Mount Industrial sub-catchment.

In 2017, after a long period of consultation with potential affected parties the Port applied for a stormwater discharge consent with Bay of Plenty Regional Council for:

• The discharge of stormwater to the coastal marine area (private stormwater network and overland flow)
• The discharge of stormwater to land where it may enter water (Tauranga City Councils piped network)

Tauranga City Council was granted a comprehensive stormwater discharge consent in 2012, which included the Mount Industrial sub-catchment. The consent included conditions around stormwater discharge, and receiving environment quality parameters. A number of the discharges from this sub-catchment contain discharges from the Port of Tauranga.

During the Ports application process it became apparent that there were issues around how the two consents would operate together with the Port seeking differing discharge limits than that contained within TCC’s comprehensive consent resulting in inconsistencies and potential compliance issues in the future.

What evolved through the engagement process was a focus on: the potential inconsistency in discharge limits; current and future potential mitigation and treatment; operational improvements; collaborative monitoring; potential industry process changes; and how operationally the two consents could work side by side to solve ongoing liability issues for TCC.