Oceania Dairy has applied to ECan for four resource consents, and the Waimate District Council for one resource consent, to construct the plant on a rural-zoned 6ha site at the corner of State Highway 1 and Cooneys Rd, about 4km north of Glenavy.
A three-member panel made up of Waimate district councillor Peter McIlraith, ECan South Canterbury councillor Bronwen Murray and independent commissioner Bob Nixon will consider the applications at a two-day hearing in Waimate starting on Monday.
In preparation for the hearing, four reports have been prepared by ECan consents investigating officers on the applications.
One report recommends the consents be granted, while the other three say they should be subject to extensive conditions.
However, the hearings panel does not have to adhere to the recommendations in the reports.
They will be considered, along with public submissions and specialist evidence, when the panel sits next week.
Oceania Dairy - which has former Meridian Energy Ltd chief executive officer Keith Turner as its chairman of directors, and former Reserve Bank governor and National Party leader Don Brash and dairy industry leader Phil Lough as directors - announced plans for the dairy plant earlier this year.
The company believes there is a demand for a new plant in the central South Island because of the huge growth in dairying over the past few years and growth planned for the future.
It has already received inquiries from potential suppliers.
Running 24 hours a day, seven days a week from late-July to the end of May, it would handle milk from up to 50,000 cows, both from suppliers, who can also be shareholders, and from farms the company is looking at establishing in the next 10 to 15 years.
Features of the proposed plant are a 37m dryer tower; coal-fired boiler house; a 45m-high boiler exhaust stack; a dry store building for the finished product; a tanker reception area to unload milk; and effluent treatment system.
