Table 2: Workshop key themes and issues – full summary

Capability and capacity                      

Auckland, Wellington, Otago, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury, Manawatu/Wanganui, Southland, West Coast, Upper South Island, Bay of Plenty, West Coast, Whangarei, Waikato, Taranaki

Variable / lack of councils and consultants capability and capacity

• Lack of a clear or sufficient legislative mandate resulting in a low priority relative to other council priorities
• Councils lack money and resources to apply good practice (particularly resource limited regions)
• Variable awareness of issues
• Variable level of service from consultants
• Shortage of expertise within councils and consultancies
• Uneven distribution of expertise
• Variable uptake of guidelines by councils and consultants
• Inadequate council processes/systems

Legislative amendment of s30 and s31 of the Resource Management Act (RMA) contaminated land changing contaminated land “functions” to “duties” to prioritise contaminated land relative to other councils functions.

Professional education/training of practitioners (risk assessment, communication, use of best practice guidance)

Increasing central govt resources / funding for management and remediation

Share and pool experience and capabilities among councils

Hold regular regional forum of local government and contaminated land practitioners

Encourage implementation of existing best practice guidance

Accreditation of contaminated land practitioners

Develop register of approved consultants

Provide expert feedback for consultants

Information

Auckland, Wellington, Otago, Waikato, Southland, Manawatu/Wanganui, Upper South Island, Bay of Plenty, Whangarei, West Coast

Lack of information on contaminated sites and inconsistent databases/registers between Councils (TLAs and RCs)

• Practice among RCs, and TLAs in managing databases is variable;  different definitions may be used
• Communication/data transfer between Rc and TLAs RCs and  TLAs of each region in managing databases is highly variable
• Incomplete council records (i.e. much historical information has been lost due to council amalgamations); 
• Information specifically lodged for the purpose of being attached to the properties files is not necessarily available
• Information not kept in a single repository and can be difficult to find. 
• Councils officers sometimes unaware of information available
• Councils do not have access to information held by ERMA. I.e. Information collected through D.G licences does not feed into local government.
• TLAs inherently conservative in the information provided on LIMs
• LIMs can be too costly to obtain and not all people get LIMs
• Information on LIM and property files can alarm landowners or potential landowners
• Limited funding of databases.

Resources needed to up-skill Territorial Local Authorities (TLAs)/ Regional Councils (RCs)

Government funding to more poorly resourced councils to get a more accurate national picture

Ministry for the Environment (MfE) to talk more widely within councils e.g. to involve building officers as well as RC and TLA contaminated land teams

Funding and support for consistent database that suits TLAS, RC and MFE needs

Territorial Authorities need to use the regional register to ensure its value and accuracy

Central government support of the implementation of registers in accordance with Contaminated Land Management Guideline # 4

A national policy statement from MfE on information transfer between organisations and maintenance of that information

Research historic records

Allowing local government longer time-frames for processing resource consents to enable time for researching historical information

Require test certifiers to report back to councils.

Community education communication about of information on Land Information Memorandum (LIMs)  and property files.

Provide incentives for land-owners to volunteer information

Define the minimum level of information that organisation should hold.

Centralisation of information in a regional database. Combined with a recording, categorising and reporting system to ensure accuracy.

Attach management plans to property information records (LIMS).

Informative pamphlet

Require mandatory LIMs

Information about specific sites provided in the public domain

Provide a common database format.  Use common system such as excel or xml.

Identification              

Hawkes Bay, Auckland, Otago, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury, Southland, Upper South Island, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Whangarei, West Coast, Taranaki

Difficulty identifying contaminated land.

• Identification is time critical. There are a dwindling number of people that know where historical contaminated sites are (e.g. sheep dips)
• Incomplete site identification guidance (HAIL list)
• Lack of legislative reporting requirements under Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act (HSNO) (e.g. test certifiers)
• There is no duty for landowners to report contamination.
• A lot of time and money needs to be invested to verify the status of sites
• “Cringe factor” of identifying contaminated land as opposed to more favourable sites i.e. historic trees.
• Lack of duty to report
• The costs for identifying contaminated sites, as well as the threat of liability for landowners are both major barriers for identification of contaminated property by local councils.
• There is currently no incentive for landowners to come forward
• Resourcing to identify HAIL sites
• Difficult to locate (e.g. sheep dips).
• Uncertainty of what is and is not contaminated land.

Communication and education of the public

Guidance on which Hazardous Activities Industry List (HAIL) category should be accorded priority would prioritise TLAs work programme

Amend RMA to include a legislative duty for landowners to report contamination

Better communicate existing incentives for self identification and remediation (e.g. tax incentives) to businesses and landowners

Provide additional incentives for self identification by landowners

Centrally fund identification of industry specific contamination (e.g. sheep dips)

Require test certifiers operating under HSNO to report contamination to councils

Education of surveyors (conveyancing), on identification of contaminated sites and ascribe them some sort of liability.

Provide voluntary identification targets for local government to aspire to

Community education and communication of sheep dip risks in partnership with Industry

Clear staged approach to sheep dip management

Expand Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund (CSRF) to better allow access to funds for farmers to identify and investigate sheep dip sites and remediate or manage.

Accreditation of people assessing subdivision applications and contaminated sites

Mandatory reporting of known sites

Use the CSRF to review groups of HAIL sites (rather than on an individual basis)

Explore enviro-link funding for identification of sites

Educational pamphlets upon the sale of land – specific to the site.

Find the people that know the locations of the sites to assist identify sites.

Remediation and disposal

1. Hawkes Bay, Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Taranaki,

2. Auckland, Whangarei, Waikato, Wellington,

3. Auckland, Waikato

1. Remediation is hindered by lack of information on techniques, the relative expense of remediation and the public preference for dig and dump.

• Difficulty proving new technology
• Uncertainty of the most appropriate site management
• Bureaucracy considered as barrier to carry out clean-ups, so sites are not being remediated
• Options for remediation / management are often restricted by availability of funding.
• There is variation/uncertainty in the ability to remediate sites as some soils cannot be mixed

Provide a database of remediation techniques (Use existing overseas databases)

Challenge assumption that contaminated necessarily needs to be disposed off-site

Guidance on remediation technology and soil mixing

Contaminated land management should be approached on a “fit for use”, site specific basis.  (Recognising that there are also commonalities with different sites.)

There needs to be greater consideration of the location of sites to waterways

Beware of simple remediation/management solutions

Research on cost-effective remediation technology.

Review natural attenuation guidelines.

Needs a management framework that enables contamination within limits (e.g. a “fit for purpose” philosophy).

Encourage the development and use of new remediation technology. 

Develop guidance to encourage educate people of appropriate and pragmatic on-site disposal/treatment.

2. Variable and overly restrictive disposal controls between regions

• Inconsistent clean-fill definitions and controls between regions
• Lack of appropriate facilities in the region can force inappropriate/illegal disposal
• Uncertainty over when soil is a waste
• Strict landfill acceptance criteria can put affected landowners trying to do “the right thing” in difficult positions
• Some low level contamination is being needlessly disposed to landfill
• There is over management of marginally contaminated materials
• Inconsistency between landfill acceptance criteria vs. contaminated land definition
• Land-filling is relatively cheap compared to onsite remediation, and remediation technologies

Provide guidance that allows for low level contaminants or less hazardous contaminants to be disposed of without having to go to a regional landfill.

Development of a hazardous waste collection system following the agrichemical collection model

Need nationally consistent cleanfill definitions and landfill acceptance criteria

Consider the minimum threshold values  - below which soil is  – i.e. considered “not contaminated and suitable for use as clean fill”

3. The Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund (CSRF) is too small and its scope is too narrow.

• Over reliance on the capability of local government to facilitate applications.
• TLA has a remediation function but do not have direct access to CSRF.
• RC priorities might not be the same as TLA priorities.
• No direct public access
• It is difficult to obtain contributors to fund remediation
• “Who decides?” there is limited amount of funding and a small number of sites that get funded every year.
• Funding of investigations does not necessarily guarantee funding of remediation.

Increase size.

Provide better criteria to defining status of contaminated sites (e.g. what is an orphaned site?).

Increase the capability and capacity of the MfE team to assist to facilitate applications to the CSRF.

Use funds to identify sector wide contamination e.g. sheep dips, automotive dismantlers and to do base investigations to identify how big the environmental risks are from such activities.

Provide direct access for TLAs to the fund.

Concentrate on areas of urban fringe

Concentrate on landfills

Concentrate on orphan land

Legislation

West Coast, Taranaki, Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Auckland, Otago, Whangarei, Auckland, Upper South Island

1. Uncertain legislative definition of contaminated land -

• What is a “significant adverse environmental effect” (RMA definition)
• What is “reasonably likely”?
• Effects hurdle is too high for new contamination
• Variable interpretation by practitioners
• Inconsistent Building Act and RMA definitions
• What is the most sensitive receptor?

Need a guideline for risk assessment

Need a nationally consistent methodologies to determine ”adverse environmental effect”

A tiered approach “trigger” followed by methodology to apply on a site specific basis

Need to apply a level of pragmatism when defining clean-up values

National environmental standard for threshold values only according to different land uses

Provide a best practice guidance note to supplement RMA definition of contaminated land?

Clarify definitions,

Provide a split definition for new and old sites

2. Other

Lack of legislative requirements to require the use of existing guidance. Uncertain controls on passive discharges

Overlap between HSNO and RMA

Need more national instruments (National Environmental Standard, National Policy Statement and guidelines) to provide direction to local government

Clarify legislation to enable consenting of passive discharges

Roles and responsibilities

Auckland, Wellington, Otago, Hawkes Bay, Canterbury, Southland, Bay of Plenty, West Coast, Whangarei, Taranaki

Uncertainty of roles and responsibilities between agencies (Health agencies, RC, TLA, MfE etc).

• RMA function s.30/31 are unclear and lacks teeth – a stronger mandate needed as councils currently accord only low priority to c/land issues
• The split in functions between TLAs, and RCs appears to have weakened the overall commitment by local government
• Uncertainty contributed to by a lack of national direction by MfE
• Uncertainty has resulted in inconsistent and variable application of functions overlap / duplication of work
• Local government: the 2005 RMA amendment was good but there was insufficient awareness and training associated with it.
• Functions create unrealistic expectations of a certain level of resourcing.

Amend RMA to provide increased legislative certainty of roles and responsibilities (RC, TLA, developers, etc)

Assign functions to one agency rather than two (e.g. RCs)

Promote greater awareness of RMA functions through education and training

Identify and communicate best practice associated with the various agency roles and responsibilities
Establish a central agency or Environmental Protection Agency to support or take over functions

Clarify how RCs/TLAs RMA function can work in practice through best practice guidance

Clarify roles and responsibilities via NES

Hold regular forum between RCs, TLAs and health agencies to discuss and agree respective roles, review activity, events, particular sites

Better integration of process between RC and TLAs
Local government need long-term commitment (including financial) from central government

Guidelines

1. Southland, Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Auckland

2. Canterbury, Auckland, Upper South Island, Waikato, Manawatu/Wanganui, Taranaki, Otago, Wellington

1. Guidance incorrectly and inconsistently applied by practitioners:

• The derivation of guideline values are often not transparent
• Guidelines are often not well understood or implemented by practitioners
• Uncertainty over the status of guidelines (legal or voluntary requirement).
• Uncertainty over who implements guidelines?
• Concern over application of guidelines and inconsistency in numbers (i.e. the Timber Treatment Guideline (TTG) )
• Often there are too many guidelines for people to choose from. 

Provide consistent methodology/values

Need for a pragmatic and risk based approach.
Need an overarching guideline that condenses previous guidelines.

Methodological based NES

Producer statements (in parallel to the building act) coupled with indemnity insurance

Education beyond contaminated sites community
Promotion of regular regional forums

Clarify which guidelines are appropriate for certain situations

Need to treat land and groundwater together

2. Guidelines are inconsistent, incomplete and need to be reviewed

• Lack of transparency over the level of uncertainty in the use of guideline values
• Certain contaminants are not covered by guidance
• no guidance for multiple contaminants
• Limited eco-toxicity guidance
• Inconsistent methodology and risk factors
• Contradiction between guidelines (e.g. TTG vs. CLMG # 5).
• CLMG # 5 statistical requirements are hard to meet, especially for large sites
• Difficult to determine which guideline is the most appropriate
• Guidelines poorly supported by educational workshops

Develop nationally consistent guideline values and methodology

Review HAIL list

Ensure NES development transparently communicates uncertainty

Include comprehensive set of contaminants in any overarching national guidelines / NES

Review CLMG #5 - sampling strategies and- interpretation and presentation of results.

Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) should develop more Environmental Exposure Limit (EEL) and Tolerable Exposure Limit (TEL)

All New Zealand derived Environmental Guideline Values (EGVs) need scheduled regular review period and formal review teams.

Standards/guidelines process needs a reality-check stage to determine the appropriateness and practicality of proposed values.

Modify CLMG # 2 to make easier to sort numbers by analytes

Community understanding

1. Auckland, Canterbury, Wellington, Taranaki

2. Otago, Southland, Taranaki, Whangarei, Bay of Plenty

1. Lack of understanding by the wider community of the risks, council requirements,  of contaminated land

Industry awareness (all sectors: e.g. planners, banks).  Raising awareness through education and training

Buyer beware’ information

Greater information transfer

Communication and education of risk-based assessment methods

Continue “Reduce your waste” type public education campaigns.

2. Low public confidence and understanding leads to fear and aversion to any level of contamination.

• There is fear associated with contaminated land because the landowner is liable under the RMA
• Often perceive contamination as either “dangerous or safe”, with little understanding of the various levels of risk.
• Confidence is low when confronted with information about land

Guidance for the public on what they should do when confronted by information in LIMs

Improve risk communication practice

Sensitive and pragmatic programme or information delivery

Working together

Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, Southland, Manawatu/Wanganui, Waikato. Taranaki

Variable practice and communication between agencies

• Ensuring that on-going site monitoring and management occurs and “ticking off” sites that are remediated or fit for purpose between councils
• Poor communication
• Duplication of reporting
• Poor communication due to lack of time, priority and resources.
• Variable TLA involvement and awareness of what the issues are and what guidance is available.
• Lack of integration between agencies that collect and report information.
• Lack of communication between agencies, and with communities.

Develop common agreed process to handle information.

Most councils want automated LIMs. 

Databases don’t need to be completely consistent.

Provide a common database format.  Use common system such as excel or xml.

Guidance on agency and legislative boundaries and communication

Set up national forums for TLAs to talk about contaminated sites.

Run regular (annual) regional forums between RC, TLAs and MfE to discuss issues, sites, etc.

Applying more resources

Develop closer and stronger networks between all agencies (including central government)

Single information exchange database between district / regional / national levels, with a common standard of reporting

Make use of Environment Canterbury  database

Methodological NES

Diffuse sources                       

1. Taranaki, Auckland, West Coast, Whangarei, Hawkes Bay, Upper South Island

2. Otago, Southland, Upper South Island, Waikato, Whangarei

Lack of understanding of urban background levels of contaminants.

• How significant are these levels? What is the effect? How do we manage them?
• Concern over sites that get contaminated as part of building process
• There has been a lack of attention to urban area contamination.  The majority of the population are exposed in these areas

Provide guidance for communities on common urban contaminants

More public communication of the risks associated with lead based paints.

Greater monitoring efforts need to be undertaken in urban areas.

Concern about the diffuse contamination of agricultural and horticultural land through the existing use of fertilisers, agrichemicals and timber treatment preservatives.

• Concern of the cumulative effects of cadmium fertiliser.
• Viticulture Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr) and Arsenic (As) or normally known as  (CCA) posts can cause hotspots of contamination as CCA leaches from the posts into the ground
• Agricultural treatments (Zinc)
• Uncontrolled movement of soil.
• Do not want to prevent entirely (e.g. fertiliser, soil conditioners)
• Implementation issues Section 15 of RMA limited to trade premises and excludes production land. Meaning that production land is allowed to be contaminated.

There needs to be a commonsense approach especially in regard to widespread contamination and a focus on sites with “significant adverse effects”

Framework needs to allow contamination to a certain level, recognising the economic well-being associated with the use of fertilisers and agrichemicals.

Connect monitoring information from agriculture industry to local government (particularly if sites fail food-safety tests).

There needs to be greater awareness in the industry

Regulate via land use planning.

There needs to be more research to determine the extent of this issue

Need to decide whether it is realistic to protect future land-users.

Define baseline, live with risk and provide public guidance to minimise exposure.

Link to producer responsibility and agrichemical programme.

Increase public and industry education and labelling.

Promote alternative types of practices to industry

Human health and ecosystem health     

Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Otago, Taranaki

Lack of guidance and unclear delineation between human heath and ecosystem health is causing inconsistency between councils and practitioners

Develop soil acceptance criteria derivation method;  illustrate application of method for selected contaminants

Provide policy framework e.g. hierarchy of actions when applying criteria including guidance note on when to apply (human health vs. environmental) so that local govt know how to implement

Guidelines in absence of guidelines (regarding ecosystems).

MfE to actively champion/ lead

Some certainty needs to be given for practitioners in the absence of guidance for ecosystems.

Provide guidance for groundwater soil trigger levels.

Provide precautionary measures (i.e. stricter controls), especially for “virgin land”.

More research is needed on ecosystem outcomes

National Environmental Standards

Manawatu/ Wanganui, Southland, Waikato, Wellington

Concerns about the use of a National Environmental Standard

• Would a NES be flexible enough to deal with natural variability and site specific factors?
• A potential NES would require a whole programme to support it, i.e. enforcement of NES
• May disenfranchise local government
• NES may raise expectation as to council resourcing
• Lack of science to support setting of NES criteria
• It may be difficult to update a regulation in response to new threshold values
• Councils have had an unsatisfactory experience with the air quality NES

A methodological NES may be more flexible and may help clarify roles/responsibilities for local government

If developed in the form of a numerical value, different values would need to be given for varying pathways and receptors.

NES needs to accommodate “no action” for contamination that is not causing a problem in respect to its land use.

A NES is important for planners as it provides something certain, less contestable than a guideline

If applying NES need supporting system

Need to trial NES as a guideline before promulgation as regulation

MFE / Central Government policy

Waikato, Manawatu/ Wanganui, Southland, Upper South Island, Southland, Waikato, Wellington

Issues with existing central government policy programmes and strategy

• Tax incentives not able to be accessed by non-business
• Need to meet obligations under Stockholm convention
• Waste strategy target unrealistic
• Too much bureaucracy
• Lack of MfE presence and awareness of local issues
• Lack of national guiding objectives
• Lack of integration of central government policy
• Inconsistent application on acceptable level of health risk in central government

Widen scope of tax incentives to non-business and others left out.

Implement the National Implementation Plan (NIP).

Need to be mindful of not just growing contaminated land policy “for the sake of it”, but making sure that it makes a difference to what is already there

Establish an EPA

MfE needs to be more involved at the start of processes for local issues

New policy needs to transparent and well justified

Need better central government policy  integration

Need cross agency agreement on acceptable level of risk

More national policy statements

More national environmental standards (NES values would need to be constantly revised by experts)

Variable practice and inconsistent plans

1. Southland, Manawatu/ Wanganui, Bay of Plenty,

2. Auckland

1. Variable and inconsistent district and regional plans

• Very few plans have contaminated land provisions
• District plan rules very inconsistent, and there is no reason for variable rules.
• District plans often ignore contaminated land
• Guidelines can take a long time to be incorporated into local plans because they are voluntary
• Lack of district plans rules to trigger assessment of land that is subject to land use change
• Lack of land use triggers for subtle land use changes, e.g. agriculture to horticulture.

Planners need to be involved in any regional forum

Develop model rules associated with contaminated land (E.g. subdivision, land-use, and discharges).

Model rules could be applied as a NES

Provide an NPS or NES that provides consistent regional and TLA rules.

Important to drive consistency from a national level.

Provide best practice guidance on district plan rules.

Implementation still important.

Develop practical best practice guidance

Being more prescriptive in plans may be better

RMA amendment to schedule four (matters that should be included in an assessment of effects on the environment)

2. Inconsistent practice by councils in:

• How guidelines are applied
• Level of involvement by agencies
• Investigation requirements between big sites and small sites
• How sites are assessed and the guidelines are adopted/ used
• What on-going site monitoring management is required
• Some councils are reluctant to require soil testing and some developers resistant to this requirement
• The standard required to be “ticked off” as remediated or fit for purpose

Develop a NES, that includes methodology, some participants preferred to have a number instead of or as well as a methodology

NES or guideline should have a standardised risk assessment model. It was said that level of flexibility will be important.  Each site has specific characteristics; therefore it will need to enable specific assessment

Cautioned that the ecology will still need to be protected, even if we don’t have numbers

Have one agency (like EPA) that provides a pool of technical expertise to agencies to avoid inconsistencies and duplication of resources

Science

Bay of Plenty, Canterbury, Southland

Better understanding of contaminant toxicity

Combined effects of different contaminants are often uncertain

There is too much focus on immobile contaminants (there are no available tools to address mobility)  

Better communication of scientific uncertainty

Iwi      

Upper South Island, Bay of Plenty

Lack of iwi input in discussion paper

Maori cultural values are often misunderstood and undervalued

Greater awareness / education / inclusion

There needs to be discussion with iwi before document comes out to include iwi content

Need to build relationships with iwi

Face to face communication

Accreditation  

Southland, Waikato

Accreditation issues

• For both local government and consultants?
• Would this be another unnecessary bureaucratic process?
• Auditors may attract liability and result in them being overly conservative

May be useful for council staff

Need credible templates (shouldn’t just be a simple “clip of the ticket”)

Set minimum professional standards

Develop training schemes for all practitioners

Set up one regional or central pool of expertise that that audits reports.