KEY POINTS:
Residents living near a former chemical plant site in Nelson are angry a report has found the area remains contaminated following an $12 million clean-up.
The Fruitgrowers' Chemical Company which had sat on the edge of the Mapua estuary has undergone a high-tech cleaning process, but Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright said yesterday they may have been better off sealing the site altogether.
Most of the pesticides and related compounds may have been destroyed but mercury residues were ignored.
"Organomercury compounds, manufactured onsite from the 1940s until 1962 should have been contaminants of concern.
"Sampling has been limited, and the potential for small 'hotspots' of metal contamination exists," Dr Wright said in a report on the clean-up overseen by the Ministry for the Environment.
She found sampling was limited not just for soil but for groundwater and air as well. Contamination levels required by resource consents were not being met and the level of airborne dioxin exposure suffered by workers and residents after a machine malfunctioned between September 2004 and November 2005 was not known.
Annette Walker, who lives by the site, told The Press she felt betrayed after hearing Dr Wright's findings as she had trusted the agencies involved to conduct the clean-up properly.
"The report raises huge questions. Why has the site still not been signed off and are the big heaps of soil remaining on the site still covering things up?"
Community Association president Devin Gallagher told Radio New Zealand residents had put up with the project, supposed to take just six months and cost $6 million, for years and no end appeared to be in sight.
While the report said the clean-up left much to be desired, Dr Wright said the soil clean-up seemed to have worked to the point the community faced no immediate dangers from the site.
- NZPA
