15 October 2007

Clandeboye Outfall announced engineering excellence award finalist

Clandeboye Outfall in South Canterbury was announced as a finalist in two categories in the 2007 New Zealand Engineering Excellence (NZEE) Awards.

The third New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for New Zealand engineering professionals. The awards are presented in two major areas: Individual Awards, that recognise leadership, entrepreneurship, and our young engineers; and Category Awards, that recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Category winners.

Rapidly increasing milk volumes and greater milk powder processing capacity at Fonterra’s Clandeboye plant forced them to investigate an alternative to supplement the disposal of its dairy processing wastes by irrigation to local farms.

The selected alternative was an ocean outfall which has been commissioned and is operating successfully. By removing Fonterra’s dependence on irrigation, the project has contributed to energy savings and sustainability.

Fonterra’s Clandeboye site is the second largest milk processing plant in the world, meaning that New Zealand engineers had to find new solutions to fit the environment and the specific requirements of this project. By the sheer size and nature of the outfall and the plant that it serves, this project stands as World Best Practice.

The project brought together three New Zealand companies, Fonterra, Beca and McConnell Dowell, each one being a major player in their respective fields of commerce, construction and engineering.

David Elms, Convenor of the Category Awards judging panel said that the calibre of finalist projects highlighted the contribution that professional engineers make to New Zealand on a social, economic and environmental scale.

“These projects made the finalist cut because they each are outstanding examples of engineering innovation”, says Mr Elms. “This year’s finalists impressed the judges by demonstrating how their projects contributed to the national economy and the reputation of New Zealand engineering and impacted on quality of life in their communities”.

Winners of both individual and category awards will be announced at a black-tie gala dinner at TE PAPA, Wellington on Wednesday, 21 November 2007.

The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are hosted by a consortium of five partners and 10 contributing organisations. The partners are: Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE); Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Incorporated (INGENIUM); Electricity Engineers Association of New Zealand (EEA); Association of Consulting Engineers New Zealand (ACENZ); and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand Inc (IPENZ).