Whirinaki locals urge closure of leaky wastewater pipe

Residents living near a pipe leaking effluent from a nearby wood processing plant onto a Hawke's Bay beach, are calling for the pipe to be shut down until the leak is fixed. Pan Pac Forestry Products, which is the second largest employer in the region, has a consent to discharge wastewater from its mill, more than two kilometres out to sea through a pipe that extends from Whirinaki Beach. But a leak has been spewing brown water and foam onto the foreshore for more than four months, and all attempts to fix it have failed.