The session was run by Fulton Hogan and the Queenstown Lakes District Council, which have jointly proposed building a solar-drying plant to make fertiliser out of sludge from Wanaka's Project Pure wastewater plant.
Fulton Hogan Central Otago regional manager Alan Peacock said opinion from Luggate and Wanaka residents who visited the site off the Luggate-Tarras highway yesterday was fairly evenly split.
''The main area of concern appears to be around the end-use of the product.
'' ... everyone seemed to think all the other things were manageable, the visual stuff, any sort of physical things [to do with the building].''
Others viewed the proposal positively and said it was a sustainable solution to getting rid of the accumulating stockpiles of sludge in the region, Mr Peacock said.
Fulton Hogan would have to acquire land and air discharge consents from the Otago Regional Council and building consent for the plant from the QLDC, and would be submitting its consent applications ''imminently''.
Mr Peacock said it was important to distinguish between the land-use and manufacturing consents.
''This plant could be anywhere and the product could still be brought here ... [the] land-use consent process would still have to take place.''
While there was 250ha of neighbouring land available to Fulton Hogan on which to apply the dried sludge material - already approved by the landowners, the product could potentially be used anywhere, he said.
A Luggate Community Association subcommittee formed to make a decision on behalf of the community on whether it accepts the proposal or opposes it, will report to residents later this month.
''If the community [decides] an outright `no' then it would have to follow the due course of the resource management process,'' Mr Peacock said.
''All the assurance that we can give them is that any land use will have to be approved by the regional council.''
Mr Peacock had always anticipated the consent application would be publicly notified, and said the consultation process would allow people to access the correct information.
''It's like any issue around health and wellbeing ... I think there's a lot of emotion involved as opposed to actually getting facts,'' Mr Peacock said.
''The more people that are involved and actually know about it, it's better than having 100 people running around in the dark not knowing the full story.''
