A dozen wineries failed to meet wastewater compliance rules during harvest 2024, with high staff turnover partly to blame, a new report shows. It’s led a councillor to question whether council staff are being tough enough, with multiple wineries failing to submit reports on time, and others discharging wastewater incorrectly.
Every harvest, the Marlborough District Council monitors wineries that discharge winery waste and grape marc to land, either with a resource consent or as a permitted activity under the Proposed Marlborough Environment Plan. During last year’s vintage, 39 wineries were monitored, and deemed either fully compliant, technically non-compliant or non-compliant. There were 22 deemed fully compliant, and four technically non-compliant. Twelve wineries were deemed non-compliant. Of those, 10 broke one condition or rule and two wineries broke two or more conditions. One winery was significantly non-compliant. The council does not name non-compliant wineries.
Marlborough District Council environmental protection officer Tonia Stewart told the council’s environmental and planning committee last week that winery wastewater had a high salt concentration, mainly due to chemical cleaning products and grape marc waste. Components such as salts, nutrients and organic load could negatively affect soil, plant and aquatic health if not disposed of properly, she said. “Wastewater needs to be treated before it can be disposed of to land,” she said. This could include removing solids and making pH adjustments, among other things.
“Many wineries have moved to an automatic system where pH is monitored constantly and automatically dosed with citric acid and caustic soda, and the system will not allow wastewater to be discharged when pH is outside the permitted range,” she said. “Wineries either have a designated waste disposal area that is planted with vegetation which helps keep the soil healthy, or they have areas of vineyard that they irrigate to once harvest is complete.”
Wineries deemed technically non-compliant had issues such as reports and samples submitted outside the required time frames. Wineries deemed non-compliant had issues with wastewatr ponding, discharging in a sensitive soil area, exceeding daily discharge volumes, exceeding wastewater or soil sampling limits, and exceeding discharge volumes, a report prepared by Stewart for the meeting said. “Two infringements and one abatement notice were issued for ponding and exceeding soil moisture and density,” Stewart told the committee.
The significantly non-compliant winery, which was not the same winery deemed significantly non-compliant during the 2023 harvest, also received an infringement and an abatement notice. Marlborough Sounds ward councillor Ben Minehan questioned if the council was being tough enough. “This is going on and on and on. Do we need to get harder?” he asked.
Stewart said she believed the council were tough enough, and thought they were getting better compliance through education and getting wineries on board, so they were open and honest about their practices. “If there are significant effects, we certainly would act on it. As you can see, we have served infringements and abatement notices. I believe working with these wineries individually will have more benefit.” She later added the wineries had a lot of staff turnover.
The council’s consents and compliance manager Gina Ferguson agreed with Stewart and said they recognised harvest was an incredibly busy period for wineries. “We have been working with the industry for a number of years and the priority is given to the management for these wastewater systems,” Ferguson said. “That tends to be what lets them down and what leads to the non-compliance.”
Stewart said the 2025 harvest was looking like it would be a “big one in terms of volumes” which would lead to more winery waste. “Council will continue to work closely with the industry with supportive involvement in pre harvest workshops to address industry related issues such as solid waste disposal and management for the 2025 harvest.“Wineries will continue to be monitored with site visits conducted to the wineries.”
