Rotowaro Carbonisation Plant
Encyclopedia
The Rotowaro Carbonisation Plant, also known as the Waikato Carbonisation Plant, was a coal
processing plant in the Rotowaro
/Huntly
area, New Zealand
. It was also the first plant to use the Lurgi process in the Southern Hemisphere
.
The first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere
, the plant was constructed in the late 1930s to convert otherwise unusable low-quality coal from the nearby Rotowaro Coal Mines into carbon briquettes, which were then used for domestic heating. The coal was carbonised using the Lurgi process, the result being coke and charcoal, with tar and creosote as by-products. The tar was used with the char to create the briquettes. Waste from the plant was discharged directly into the nearby Awaroa stream, which caused heavy pollution of the waterway. Following complaints about the pollution, Waikato Carbonisation Limited trialed a waste incineration programme, but the output of the plant exceeded the capacity of the burners. The excess was pumped into waste pools up until the plant's closure in 1985, when major fire caused a retort to explode.
Various ownership changes lead to the complete abandonment of the plant. The plant currently sits on land administered by the Public Trust.
Due to the historic nature of the site, the plant is classed as a Category I Historic Place by the Historic Places Trust.
completed a cleanup of the site, and removed all chemicals that posed a risk
to human health or to the environment.
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
processing plant in the Rotowaro
Rotowaro
Rotowaro was once a small coal mining township approximately 10 km west of Huntly in the Waikato region of New Zealand. The town was built especially for miners houses, but was entirely removed in the 1980s to make way for a large opencast mine.- History :...
/Huntly
Huntly, New Zealand
Huntly is a town in the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is on State Highway 1, 93 kilometres south of Auckland and 35 kilometres north of Hamilton. It is situated on the North Island Main Trunk Railway and straddles the Waikato River.Huntly was called Rahui Pokeka when...
area, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. It was also the first plant to use the Lurgi process in the Southern Hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere
The Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
.
History
Southern Hemisphere
The Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
, the plant was constructed in the late 1930s to convert otherwise unusable low-quality coal from the nearby Rotowaro Coal Mines into carbon briquettes, which were then used for domestic heating. The coal was carbonised using the Lurgi process, the result being coke and charcoal, with tar and creosote as by-products. The tar was used with the char to create the briquettes. Waste from the plant was discharged directly into the nearby Awaroa stream, which caused heavy pollution of the waterway. Following complaints about the pollution, Waikato Carbonisation Limited trialed a waste incineration programme, but the output of the plant exceeded the capacity of the burners. The excess was pumped into waste pools up until the plant's closure in 1985, when major fire caused a retort to explode.
Various ownership changes lead to the complete abandonment of the plant. The plant currently sits on land administered by the Public Trust.
Due to the historic nature of the site, the plant is classed as a Category I Historic Place by the Historic Places Trust.
Pollution and Cleanup
After the plant's closure, the plant was owned jointly by the Ministry of Energy and New Zealand Steel. Following the private sale of NZ Steel, the land on which the plant was located passed onto the local regional administration. An environmental evaluation of the site in the 1990s showed that the degree of contamination was at a hazardous level. As a result, Environment WaikatoWaikato
The Waikato Region is a local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato, Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the northern King Country, much of the Taupo District, and parts of Rotorua District...
completed a cleanup of the site, and removed all chemicals that posed a risk
Hazardous waste
A hazardous waste is waste that poses substantial or potential threats to public health or the environment. According to the U.S. environmental laws hazardous wastes fall into two major categories: characteristic wastes and listed wastes.Characteristic hazardous wastes are materials that are known...
to human health or to the environment.