| 7 T T Karen Phelps New facility a boost for primary industry The PEQ facility will double the country’s capacity to import new plant varieties. Ministry of Primary Industries and Leighs Construction “It’s incredibly important for the growth of our primary production sector. To be able to bring in new plant varieties is the lifeblood for developing new crops and products, so the PEQ facility is a huge boost for the industry.” REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT The Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) new Level 3B Post Entry Quarantine (PEQ) facility has reached operational readiness, with the first plants due to arrive in March. Located at the Mount Albert Research Centre, the PEQ facility will double the country’s capacity to import new plant varieties. As the only current Level 3B PEQ provider in New Zealand, MPI’s new facility has enormous potential benefits for the country’s horticulture industry, says Dr Fleur Francois, Biosecurity New Zealand’s director of diagnostics, readiness and surveillance. “It’s incredibly important for the growth of our primary production sector. To be able to bring in new plant varieties is the lifeblood for developing new crops and products, so the PEQ facility is a huge boost for the industry,” she says. Built by head contractor Leighs Construction, with key project partner Apex Environmental, the PEQ facility features 12, Level 3B PEQ greenhouse units, designed to the highest containment standards. The additional greenhouse units will provide much-needed space to meet the increasing demand for plant germplasm imports requiring quarantine. The facility boasts advanced environmental controls to create optimal growing conditions for various plants, and an on-site effluent disposal system to treat liquid waste, ensuring biosecurity risks are contained. “Many people may not understand why such rigorous quarantine protocols are necessary. It’s because there are a whole lot of pests and diseases we don’t have in New Zealand that would be devastating if they arrived. And they don’t always show obvious symptoms or signs on the plant material. “We need to grow the plants for months and test them over that time with molecular diagnostic testing at defined times.” Dr Francois says Leighs Construction has been integral to the project, providing buildability input from the early stages of development, ensuring practical construction solutions were incorporated into the design. She says demand for importing new plant material has increased dramatically over the past decade, and that this trend is expected to continue, due to innovation in New Zealand’s plant-based industries, changing consumer preferences, and the need for improved pest and disease resistance. “We’ve had a lot of interest in the new facility, and booking space from a whole range of different industries.” Biosecurity New Zealand (BNZ) Tiakitanga Pūtaiao Aotearoa, a business unit within the Ministry for Primary Industries, has led the project. The facility is part of its wider effort to protect New Zealand’s primary industries from biosecurity risks, and ensuring it continues to be a safe and secure trading partner. The PEQ facility will sit alongside the new plant health and environment laboratory, which will be a reference laboratory providing diagnostic testing for all plant health, pests and diseases that New Zealand could face. “We are constantly running surveillance, so this facility will be where we test plant material from within New Zealand.” The process may become more streamlined in future, as she says MPI is consulting on changes that could drastically reduce the time plants must spend in quarantine. Apex Water is proud to have worked with Leighs Construction and the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in the design, construction and commissioning of the wastewater treatment plant to support the new Interim Post-Entry Quarantine (IPEQ) facility in Auckland. Early contractor involvement by Apex Water allowed a collaborative approach be taken to delivery of this critical part of the overall project, which required all wastewater to be sterilised through heat treatment to ensure no biosecurity risk to New Zealand as a result of discharge to the Council sewer. This represented a unique and highly-speci ic wastewater treatment requirement. The solution designed and installed by Apex Water included a sump to receive all wastewater lows from the IPEQ facility, a wastewater holding tank providing three days of emergency storage, and a pasteuriser unit complete with discharge heat exchanger. The pasteuriser ensures all wastewater is heated to a minimum of 95°C for a minimum of 30 seconds, as per MPI speci ications, before it is cooled via a heat exchanger to under 40°C and discharged to sewer under a trade waste discharge permit. The entire process is highly automated, including reprocessing of wastewater should speci ications not be met. The Apex Water project delivery team, including design engineers and project managers, gained immense satisfaction through successfully completing this challenging project with its unique requirements. Drawing on our experience in the design and construction of water and wastewater treatment plants for municipal and industrial clients, design and placement of the wastewater sump required careful consideration to ensure all wastewater lows from the facility were captured and contained. It was critically important to ensure data was logged to demonstrate compliance with the sterilisation requirements and transmitted to the site’s Building Management System. Procedures for the completion of maintenance on the treatment plant were developed to ensure the capture of all untreated wastewater from system components for processing. Ensuring the system could be cleaned in place was important to ensure ongoing performance and longevity. Now the project has been completed and the system is operational, Apex is looking forward to maintaining a positive relationship with MPI through ongoing operational and maintenance support for the treatment plant.
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