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Executive summary

Like many other similar sites around the world, the Fruitgrowers Chemical Company Site at Mapua has a long and complex history of chemical manufacture and formulation. The New Zealand government and the Tasman District Council funded a remediation of the area, with the aim of cleaning up the site and its surrounds to allow commercial, residential and open space use of the site, and to minimise the continuing off-site effects of the residual contamination.

The site and its clean-up drew considerable public attention. The remediation strategy, the technology to be used and the potential for off-site effects all featured in the consent hearings and approvals processes.

The original clean-up contractor (Thiess Services Ltd) withdrew from its contract with TDC, and the Ministry for the Environment assumed the role of consent holder for the remediation. This conflated a number of potentially conflicting roles.

The remediation was always going to be a challenging one. As the first substantial clean-up of its type in New Zealand, and using developing technology on a closely settled site there were significant unknowns, requiring a close and adaptive management throughout the project. The consent conditions recognised this. Unsurprisingly, there were some challenges during the clean-up. Neither the control of air emissions, nor the reagent mix used in the MCD technology were finalised at the time of the consent hearings and became the subject of much scientific and technical debate. Noise and dust generated at the site created disturbance to neighbours.

In July 2008 the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment published a report of its investigation into the clean-up at Mapua.

This report was commissioned by the Chief Executive of the Ministry to gain an independent view of the performance of the Ministry during the clean-up.

This review found that the Ministry acted rapidly and with appropriate due diligence to arrange transfer the consents and establish a project management structure to deliver the project using the Thiess documentation as a project plan. It handled other aspects of the Ministry role using internal ‘business as usual’ processes. There were some gaps in project establishment that led to difficulties in the execution of the project.

Project structure and oversight in the Ministry seemed less stringent as the project progressed. The Ministry was slow to respond to a number of issues during the clean-up. This resulted from a range of factors - the complexity of the decisions to be made; uncertainties in the consent conditions, and the Ministry’s judgment of the means to tackle the issue. The informal processes of project management contributed.

The Consents have now expired and the site has now been capped with clean soil and grassed. It would be premature to comment on the current state of the site before the formal audit and validation has been completed. Nevertheless, a substantial amount of residual toxic material has been removed from the site, and the site made available for the safe use of the land for defined purposes.

This report makes a number of recommendations for the Ministry to consider. These address both the Ministry’s current obligations for the site, and the application of its learning from Mapua to provide guidance for the future.

 

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Last updated: 8 December 2008