Northport will have to apply for a consent to fumigate logs using methyl bromide within six months of the Regional Plan coming into effect.
Photo / Michael Cunningham
Northport will have to apply for a consent to fumigate logs using methyl bromide within six months of the Regional Plan coming into effect.
Photo / Michael Cunningham
Northport will have to apply for a resource consent to continue using a controversial fumigant on export quality logs after a legal challenge by Northland public health officials.
Last year, the Northland District Health Board's public and population health unit went to the Environment Court to challenge Northland RegionalCouncil's decision not to publicly notify large discharges of toxic air by big industrial outlets that have adverse health and environment impacts.
The DHB also opposed classifyingsawmilling, premises used for fumigation for quarantine purposes, and quarrying operations being allowed as permitted activities.
At the centre of the board's legal challenge was Northport's use of methyl bromide— a colourless and odourless toxic pesticide used to treat log and wood pulp exports. Ithas been banned in many countries but is widely used at New Zealand ports.
Approved fumigator Genera uses iton behalf of Northport at the deep water port at Marsden Pt.
Northport's discharge to air from industrial premises was, until the court's judgment last week, a permitted activity in Northland's Regional Plan, as long as it did not affect the environment beyond the boundary of those activities.
The court has ordered the council to make activities such as fumigation of logs using methyl broxide at Northport a discretionary activity under the Resource Management Act.
That means Northport will have to apply for a resource consent and it's up to NRC whether to grant it and whether to seek public feedback before deciding.
If granted, the activity must comply with the requirements, conditions and permission specified in the Act.
Genera can continue to fumigate until the Regional Plan is fully operative but Northport must apply for a resource consent within six months of the plan coming into effect.
A number of appeals against aspects of the plan will have to be sorted before it becomes fully operative.
Quarry operations, too, would need a resource consent once the Regional Plan became operative.
Northport chief executive Jon Moore said the company was disappointed but accepted the outcome.
Methyl bromide has been at the centre of health scares in ports around New Zealand where it's used to fumigate logs bound for the export market.
Photo / NZME
Northport joined the court proceedings but withdrew because of the high staff time and legal costs, Moore said.
"Northport believes that the rule status should not be discretionary as this potentially enables the regional council to decline a regulatory requirement."
Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) general secretary Joe Fleetwood said there were many cases at ports outside Northland where workers have suffered ill health, believed to be exposure from methyl bromide. "We support the use of methyl bromide if it's recaptured or, in other words, done in a purpose-built facility, rather than under a tarpaulin."
In 2010, MUNZ called out Port Nelson over concerns about a disproportionately high number of motor neurone disease cases among workers. The link was never proved, but it remains lodged in the debate.
Methyl bromide is corrosive to the nasal passages and lungs if inhaled by humans, animals, birds and insects.
It is a neurotoxin and enters the body through the skin, into the blood stream and into the brain.
As the substance is virtually undetectable by humans, specialist equipment is required to detect it and determine the concentration level.
In 2017, the Environment Court upheld a decision by an independent commissioner appointed by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council to refuse consent for the discharge of methyl bromide for log fumigation from ships holds and under tarpaulin at the Port of Tauranga.
