Toxin assurances 'a whitewash'

BY TRACY WATKINS

Health Ministry assurances to residents living near a contaminated site in Nelson are being labelled a whitewash.

Officials say many residents were exposed to toxic chemicals but are unlikely to suffer any long-term effects.

The ministry issued a statement yesterday telling residents that their exposure to chemicals, including dioxins, PCBs, benzene and arsenic, during the cleanup of former Fruitgrowers Chemical Company land was probably not long enough to cause concern.

This was despite its own report acknowledging a high level of uncertainty due to inadequate monitoring in some cases and a recommendation that the groundwater beneath the Mapua site be recorded as officially undrinkable.

It also admitted that those "limitations" in monitoring meant it could not give assurances about the long-term effects on people living in 30 households to the south of the site with the same confidence. The report threw doubt on whether even using groundwater from beneath the site for irrigating produce was safe.

Tasman District Council should check the water first, it said.

The report also recommended blood testing some residents but the ministry said yesterday it had received expert advice that this would not result in "either the community or the individual being much wiser".

Officials would consult the community during the next six weeks before deciding on the next step.

Green MP Catherine Delahunty said the ministry's assurances bore little resemblance to the actual report, which had established that Mapua households were exposed to toxic chemicals such as dioxins and PCBs.

The exposure occurred through dust, evaporated pesticides and dioxins created in an experimental soil drier, Ms Delahunty said.

"[It] is an attempt to whitewash a very serious situation."

But the ministry said its report found that residents living to the north and west of the Fruitgrowers site were probably unaffected by the cleanup.

"The steps taken to protect public health during the cleanup process meant that people living to the north or west of the site were unlikely to have been adversely affected by the organochlorines and heavy metals.

"However, the confidence with which we can say this for those living to the south is weaker because of limitations in the comprehensiveness of monitoring."

The public health risks were "very low to medium" in the case of exposure to the contaminants PM10 and ammonia – but unknown in the case of dioxins, PCB's and benzene, the report said.

The affected site is about 15 kilometres from Nelson and involves about five hectares of land. A factory producing pesticides, herbicides and fungicides operated there until 1988.

Most of the land is now owned by the council, which wants to use it for a mix of residential, commercial and recreational space.