Bureaucrats struggling with meth laboratory clean-ups

Councils are grappling with how to deal with clean-ups of methamphetamine-making laboratories, as more labs are busted around New Zealand.

Although the country has been gripped by a P (pure methamphetamine) epidemic for more than two years, local authorities are still formulating protocols with police for contaminated former labs which are creating health hazards.

"It's seat of the pants stuff," said Napier City Council chief inspector Dave Fellowes, referring to the recent clean-up of a Tamatea house after police discovered a P lab.

Under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, Mr Fellowes issued an emergency clean-up order to the landowner, Housing New Zealand.

A couple of tonnes of contaminated items were removed from the property by the council and buried at the tip.

Housing New Zealand spokesman Marie Martin said the Napier property had been secure since August 5 and a clean-up was scheduled for today.

The 1996 act outlines procedures for cleaning up chemical hazards in the workplace or public places, but these were developed before the advent of P.

Kapiti Coast District Council environmental protection manager Rod Shaw said P labs had been around a while, but there was still confusion about which authorities should take responsibility for clean-ups.

In the past, when police finished with a house as a crime scene, it just reverted to being a home despite being contaminated, Mr Shaw said.

Until recently the police had not contacted the council, he said.

He had only received official confirmation of a P lab in the area when he phoned and asked for it, he said.

"We see a tanker containing chemicals that crashes in a public or private place splashed over the news and the Ministry of Health gets involved," he said. "There are parallels with the discovery of P labs."

The ministry's role so far has been to give advice, but not get directly involved in clean-ups.

However, Acting Director of Public Health Doug Lush said the National Hazardous Substances Technical Liaison Committee was producing a communication and management protocol to deal with P labs.

"The protocol will give a territorial authority clear guidance on how to deal with premises that have been affected by toxic chemicals."

In June, a West Auckland couple won compensation from their landlord after the house they had rented had been used as a P Lab.

Leah Wilson and Christopher James and their two daughters suffered eye irritations and sore throats for months after they moved into the Oratia house.

They learned their home had been used to manufacture P shortly after the birth of their third child.

The Tenancy Tribunal awarded the couple $990, ruling the owners, Quinovic Property Management, failed to clean up the property.

Rex de Bettencor, principal at Quinovic, said the company had been unaware the property had been used as a P Lab.

The police had not passed that information on, nor had they issued a cleaning order.

- NZPA