August 8, 2014

214 Properties no longer on the potentially contaminated list

Environment Canterbury has written to 214 landowners in the Pacific Park subdivision in North New Brighton advising them that their properties are no longer listed as potentially contaminated on the Listed Land Use register.

“A couple of residents questioned their listing and we were able to have a more detailed look at the site to see if they were right,” says Ken Taylor, Director of Investigations and Monitoring.

“We’ve spoken to some of the long-term residents who were able to show us exactly where the landfill trenches were dug, and we’ve also been given some bore log reports from properties in the area we hadn’t seen before,” he says.

“We’ve been delighted to have this additional information and update our records accordingly. We know we have some gaps in our data and this shows how effective a community response can be,” he says. “We’ve apologised for any concern residents had over the initial registration of their property.”

Pacific Road Landfill #39 was initially identified in a Christchurch City Council “The Garbage Connection” report by John Zanetti in 1990, which included information about Council tips and what waste went into them. Other sources for our original listing for Pacific Park were two other reports about Council landfills from 1993 and 2000. These sources all referred to the Pacific Park Landfill as occupying the park in its entirety and did not specify that some parts of the park were not actually used as a landfill.

“We are dealing with a lot of complex information about these sites, information that has come from a number of sources and over different decades, and there can be inaccuracies and gaps in some of this information,” Mr Taylor says.

“We have made every effort to accurately identify the location, extent and relevant information about each site and have always said we’re keen to hear from anyone who has information showing their land has been incorrectly identified on the register. The key to having accurate data is to be responsive to the community and to make sure the data is kept up to date. That’s what we’ve done here.”

Background information
Environment Canterbury wrote to 11,000 landowners in May this year advising them their land had been listed on the Land Use Register as land with a history of hazardous activities and industries.

Since then, we have had approximately 50 queries from people asking if they had been incorrectly listed on the register. Of these, so far, a handful (between 5 – 10) has provided additional information about their properties to show beyond doubt that their land hadn’t previously been associated with a hazardous activity or industry. Their listings have been corrected to show that “We have information which shows this property has never been associated with any of the specific land uses on the HAIL list.”

Each query is handled on a case by case basis.

ENDS

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