Tests for preschool poisons put on fast track

Three preschools still suspected of being sited on land contaminated with toxic chemicals will be tested immediately, says Auckland City Deputy Mayor Bruce Hucker.

The council is moving swiftly to test and clean up the last of eight preschool facilities on council-owned land at two sites in Mt Albert and one in Onehunga.

The other five preschools have been tested. Two have been cleaned up, two are about to be cleaned up and the council is expected to have test results from the Freemans Bay Community Centre on Wednesday.

Dr Hucker and Ruth Connor, the support convener for the Auckland Playcentres Association, assured parents there was no immediate risk for children attending Ferndale Park and Phyllis St Recreation Centre in Mt Albert and the Onehunga Playcentre.

"The evidence is that even in those sites that have been contaminated there is no immediate danger to health and the risks of serious medical effects that are damaging to kids is very low," Dr Hucker said yesterday.

Onehunga Playcentre enrolment officer Anna McDonald said she had been told about the issue on Friday by the council's engineers on the soil testing programme, Tonkin & Taylor.

The issue would be discussed at a regular business meeting tonight.

The playcentre has a maximum of 25 children at each session.

Anne McKenzie, the head teacher at Ferndale Park, said last night that it was not going to get "hysterical" but wait and see what happened.

The council has organised a meeting for parents at 7.30pm tomorrow at the Freemans Bay Community Centre.

Council staff and an occupational health and safety medical officer, Dr Tim Sprott, will go through the health issues and proposals for dealing with any digestive and respiratory upsets and skin and eye irritation.

The council believes the contaminated soil may have come from work on the old Beaumont St gasworks site about 30 years ago for a retaining wall and building platform.

The eight preschool sites are part of a council soil-testing programme prompted by an Auckland Regional Council research project in 2001 on former horticultural land in response to foreign studies which found levels of DDT, arsenic, copper and lead exceeding health protection levels.

Last night, a council spokesman said a Pt Chevalier site was cleaned up last May and a Mt Wellington site in December. They contained benzo-a-pyrene, plus lead and zinc which were commonly found in Auckland soils.

The chemicals were about half a metre under the surface.


Childcare contamination

Testing & cleaned up:
* Learning at the Point Community Kindergarten, Huia Rd, Pt Chevalier.Mt Wellington Playcentre, Penrose Rd.

Tested and about to be cleaned up:
* Community hall play area, Ramsgate St, Ellerslie.Auckland Central Playcentre, Wellington St, Freemans Bay.

Tested & awaiting results:
* Freemans Bay Community Centre, Hepburn St.

Still to be tested:
* Ferndale Park, New North Rd, Mt Albert.Onehunga Playcentre, Hill St.Phyllis St Recreation Centre, Mt Albert. Toxic soil casts cloud on preschool playgrounds