More than 1900 tainted Wellington sites

The number of potentially contaminated sites in the Wellington region has grown by almost 200 in less than a year.

The region has more than 1900 potentially contaminated sites, a report going before Greater Wellington regional council's Te Upoko Taiao  natural resource plan committee  today says.

The number of sites is up from 1730 in October, when the Selected Land Use Register (Slur) was issued to The Dominion Post under the Official Information Act. The register records sites with a history or status of hazardous activities.

But a Greater Wellington spokesman said only nine of the 170 extra sites were actually new. Another site was also being investigated for inclusion.

Instead, most of the sites were cases where a property had been subdivided, meaning a new address  and therefore a new contaminated site  had been created.

"A single site on Slur may contain a large parcel of land. When that is subdivided, each new site [or new address] created has to be listed," he said.

Some sites were also on the list more than once, because errors could not be deleted and could only be corrected by reintroducing the entries. Sites entered in error counted towards the final total, he said.

Of the nine new sites, seven had underground fuel storage tanks, and two were landfill sites.

Details on the list were constantly being added, he said.

A site was included on the register if its present or past land use matched an activity or industry on the Hazardous Activities and Industries List.

This list, which contained 53 activities and industries, was compiled by the Environment Ministry.

The Wellington region's register includes sites contaminated by asbestos, DDT, munitions, timber treatment chemicals, hydrocarbons, lead, heavy metals and solvents.

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