WorkSafe orders review of asbestos management at fire stations

WorkSafe began assessing fire stations in Auckland in 2021. Photo / NZH

By Phil Pennington of RNZ

The workplace safety regulator has ordered a review of asbestos management plans at about 300 of the country’s fire stations.

WorkSafe put this out after its inquiries concluded Fire and Emergency “has failed to ensure the health and safety of the workers” at its main station in central Auckland.

It has been partly shut by contamination for weeks, and a second station, in Invercargill, was also partly shut last week.

WorkSafe noted that at Pitt St station in Auckland, FENZ “in particular ... has failed to effectively implement and monitor controls to manage the risk posed from asbestos fibres known to cause serious harm”.

Asbestos is a leading workplace killer. Seven years ago, WorkSafe estimated 170 people died from it - now it says it is more like 220 a year.

Its Improvement Notice goes much further, stating FENZ must:

“Review all asbestos management plans ... to ensure they are implemented, monitored and effective.”

That has to be done by August 17, a big job considering FENZ has said it has plans at all 300 or so stations where surveys in 2020-21 found asbestos-containing materials.

Such material can be safe, so long as it is not disturbed. At Auckland, it was disturbed by renovations, though air testing in work spaces has so far come up clear for fibres.

FENZ’s Auckland station survey found asbestos in pipe-insulation that was medium-risk, but a union-commissioned survey just a few weeks ago found high-risk asbestos in six places in the ceilings.

FENZ has said its management plans are “guidance and processes for managing and controlling asbestos containing materials safely” and its 2021-22 annual report said it had “successfully managed our maintenance and modernisation programmes, which includes... asbestos management”.

WorkSafe began assessing fire stations in Auckland in 2021, but it appears this work was not completed.

Fire and Emergency said 306 fire stations and other work sites were affected.

“The health and safety of our personnel is of critical importance to us and we are taking this very seriously,” it said late on Sunday.

“We’ll be working through all the issues associated with this notice. We posted the notice at Wellington Headquarters and at Auckland City Station and sent out a national notice on Friday.”