Southland District Council and Environment Southland have both offered to clean up the Tuturau slink skin site near Gore after its operator failed to comply with an Environment Court order, Farmers Weekly reported on Thursday.
The operation is run by NZAgri Development and its manager, Da Cheng (Eddie) Zhi.
An interim enforcement order granted by the Environment Court on 9 September required Mr Zhi to stop unlawful discharges of contaminants, including leachate from animal carcases.
It also required him to stop taking in and processing carcases at the property, and to remove all of them, processed or not, to a suitable disposal facility.
Donna Ferguson, Environment Southland's compliance manager, said the regional council had applied to the court for permission to do some or all of the clean-up on the operator's behalf.
"The council has not yet decided whether it would do so if permission is granted," she said.
"We are currently awaiting the court's decision on that application."
Ms Ferguson said Environment Southland had not offered to pay for the work.
Farmers Weekly said it had seen emails between Mr Zhi and the district council's monitoring and compliance manager.
In them, the council said it was prepared to look at removing all carcases and pumping out the settlement ponds, among other work, if funding could be found. It would arrange disposal as it saw fit.
The email said the offer "does not constitute an acceptance by council of responsibility or liability" for the state of the site.
In his reply, Mr Zhi said he wanted to cover the cost of the clean-up himself.
The district council first learned of thousands of carcases piled at the property through complaints in September 2025, RNZ reported in October.
Neighbours have complained of offensive smells and heaps of carcases.
Environment Southland has laid seven charges against the business. Six relate to discharges of blood, leachate or other contaminants onto land where they could enter water, and the seventh alleges abatement notices were not complied with. Separate charges have been laid by the district council.
On 8 October, at an Environment Court hearing held in Invercargill, the district council asked the court to revoke the factory's resource consent.
Council lawyer Laura Bielby told the court that more than a year of enforcement had not brought the site into compliance, RNZ reported.
Mr Zhi, who represented himself, became emotional at that hearing.
"My heart is absolutely shattered. I have had enough. I have really had enough," he told the court.
What happens next
Environment Southland is waiting for the Environment Court to rule on its application to carry out the clean-up. It has not decided whether it would go ahead if permission is granted.
The district council's offer depends on funding being secured.
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