Toxins found at Invercargill scrap site

Environment Southland is investigating an Invercargill industrial site believed to have been contaminated with toxic chemicals known as PCBs.

Council chief executive Ciaran Keogh said the site, which he would only identify as being in the Prestonville industrial area in Invercargill, was believed to have been contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) when it was a scrap yard in the 1980s.

The land was used to store scrap including old transformers, which could be a source of PCBs, he said.

Ownership of the land had changed and the site was no longer used as a scrap yard, Mr Keogh said.

Some of the contaminated ground was thought to have been scraped off and disposed of, probably at a landfill site. Some was detected in a disused drain, he said.

According to the Health Ministry's Safe Management of PCBs Code of Practice 2008 the most common adverse health effects in humans exposed to large amounts of PCBs are skin conditions such as acne and rashes.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has also determined that PCBs are probably carcinogenic to humans, it says.

Mr Keogh said contaminant levels were not considered high but the council would be investigating to find where the disturbed land had gone.

The information would also be passed on to the Invercargill City Council to investigate the drain.

The site would be included in the council's contaminated sites register, he said.

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