Summaries for reports
Mapua Remediation – Consideration of Recommendations in the Public Health Report
The Nelson Marlborough District Health Board (NMDHB) were commissioned to investigate the potential public health risk relating to remediation activities at Mapua. This included air dispersion and deposition modelling, to identify the locations potentially at risk of exposure to dioxin emissions.
Findings of all the investigations were reported to Ministry of Health in the Assessment of Public Health Risk from the Remediation of the former Fruitgrowers Chemical Company site, Mapua, Nelson (Ministry of Health's website), February 2010, which contained the following recommendation:
Recommendation 3 - It is specifically recommended that MfE should seek expert opinion on undertaking soil sampling for contaminants that may have been discharged onto residential properties in close proximity to the site as follows:
- Dioxins and non dioxin-like PCBs in residential properties in close proximity and downwind to the site.
Mapua Remediation – Consideration of Recommendations in the Public Health Report (PDF, 118 KB). The Mapua Site Auditor was retained by MfE to provide the expert opinion with respect to whether sampling was necessary. The expert opinion concluded the following:
- that the emissions would not have significantly increased dioxin concentrations in the soils
- it was unlikely that soil sampling and analysis would detect any observable increase in dioxin concentrations
- sampling of residential soils for dioxins was therefore not recommended.
Mapua: limited soil sampling and dioxin analysis
In September 2010 the Ministry for the Environment commissioned a limited soil sampling and dioxin analysis.
Soil samples were taken from nine locations, seven from around the FCC site and two at background locations and analysed for a range of dioxins. The results of the soil samples analysis indicated that the dioxin concentrations found in the Mapua soils are:
- within the range found in other provincial centres in New Zealand.
- below national and international guideline values for residential areas
The full report is available at the following link:
Last updated: 7 December 2010
