Timber workers sought for study of chemical effects

The leader of a study into chemicals used in the timber industry is hunting for details of former workers.

A research team, headed by Professor Neil Pearce from the Massey University public health team, will spend two years and up to $520,000 finding out whether workers exposed to pentachlorophenol (PCP) are dying earlier, getting cancers more often or suffering more chronic health problems.

Traces of PCP were discovered at the Blue Mountain Lumber sawmill near Tapanui just over a year ago.

Owner Ernslaw One spent an estimated $600,000 cleaning up the chemicals and is waiting to see if the Government will help foot the bill.

The sawmill was Crown-owned before being sold in 1990.

At a meeting of present and former staff on the Conical Hill, west Otago, site in July, several people said they knew of former employees who had either died relatively young or had endured years of chronic health problems after encountering the chemical.

In the Bay of Plenty, a free mobile treatment clinic for former sawmill workers and their families suffering from chemical-related illnesses has been promoted by the Sawmill Workers Against Poisons lobby group in Whakatane.

Members are former timber treatment workers who are worried about their exposure to PCP at Carter Holt Harvey mills in Whakatane, Waipa and Kinleith.

And in the Bay of Plenty, 60 former timber workers who applied for compensation for exposure to PCP were assessed by an independent ACC panel that recommended cover be given to 20.

At Rotorua a new company, Red Stag Timber, will take over the former state sawmill, Waipa Mill, from October 1.

The cost of fixing the effects of historic PCP spills has been estimated at between $5 million and $15 million.

Professor Pearce said he wanted to protect the identities of former workers involved in the research, but indicated people from all over the country would be included in the study. "A lot of who we get will depend on finding enough records from the past and also how co-operative the timber companies are to us."

Associate Labour Minister Ruth Dyson said timber workers had lived with uncertainty for a long time.

The project would help provide some certainty about the impact PCP exposure had on their health. Workers involved in the treatment processes and handling of the treated timber are known to have experienced significant PCP exposure.

"Funding this work is important. It will help provide clarity around what has been a difficult issue, particularly for those former timber workers with health problems and their families," Ms Dyson said.

The study will compare timber workers' death rates with national figures and estimate the size of any risks attributable to PCP.

It will also involve a survey of current health problems in a random sample of former timber workers. PCP was widely used in the New Zealand timber industry between the 1950s and late 1980s to prevent fungi from staining timber.

Keeping down fungi

* PCP was widely used in the timber industry between the 1950s and late 1980s to prevent fungi from staining timber.

* A $520,000 research project will study the impact of the chemical on workers and will include random samples from them.

- NZPA