The proposed national environmental standard was publicly notified on 6 February 2010. Fourteen consultation workshops on the proposed standard were held in main centres during March 2010 to inform people about the proposed standard, and to encourage and assist people to prepare submissions on the proposal. Around 460 people attended the workshops.
The period for submissions closed on 19 April 2010. The Ministry is now analysing the submissions received.
The Government is proposing a national environmental standard (as regulations under the Resource Management Act 1991) for assessing and managing contaminants in soil.
The proposed standard is consistent with the purpose of the Act as it will promote sustainable management of resources in a way which enables people and communities to provide for their social, economic and cultural wellbeing and their health and safety.
It does so by:
In essence, the proposal is a mix of allowing (permitting) and controlling (requiring resource consents) certain activities on land affected or potentially affected by soil contaminants. The standard would require all 73 territorial authorities (district and city councils) to give effect to and enforce its requirements. The standard will only impact on new decisions and resource consents.
To read more about the proposed national environmental standard and the process of developing it:
The diagram below outlines the process for developing a national environmental standard. The arrow indicates the stage that the Ministry for the Environment has reached in developing the proposed National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil.

Read a description of this figure
The scope of a national environmental standard is first discussed informally with stakeholders. A discussion document is then prepared and approved by Cabinet before its release for the purpose of public consultation. Following public notification, and a 10-week submissions period, the formal public phase of the development of a standard is completed.
The submissions received are analysed, and a summary is reported to the Minister for the Environment. Also submitted to the Minister are the Ministry’s recommendations on the national environmental standard proposal, a Section 32 RMA cost-benefit analysis, and a regulatory impact assessment. The Minister consults his colleagues, a regulation is drafted and if approved by Cabinet, the reports and recommendations are released and the standard is promulgated.
At present, submissions have closed and we are at the stage of analysing submissions.
The Minister has received a total of 106 submissions on the NES proposal. The Ministry is now in the process of analysing these submissions.
The majority of submissions were from local government ( 42) and industry (33). All submissions were broken down into 10 categories.
Figure 2 represents the different categories of submitters by their proportion (the number indicates the number of submissions in that category).

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The pie chart shows the number and proportion of submissions by submitter category.
|
Number |
Proportion of total submissions |
|---|---|---|
| Territorial local authority | 28 | 26% |
| Industry | 33 | 31% |
| Regional Council | 11 | 10% |
| NGO | 9 | 8% |
| Individual | 8 | 8% |
| Public Health or DHB | 6 | 6% |
| Central Government | 3 | 3% |
| Consultancy | 3 | 3% |
| Unitary Authority | 3 | 3% |
| Iwi | 2 | 2% |
| Totals | 106 | 100% |
The submissions were grouped into 5 categories according to their position on the proposal. The nature of the submissions received on the proposal was as follows:
The numbers in the chart indicate the number of submissions in that category.
Read a description of this figure
The pie chart shows the number and proportion of submissions, by the position taken by the submitter.
| Number of submissions | Proportion of total | |
|---|---|---|
| Support | 14 | 13% |
| Conditional Support | 59 | 56% |
| Opposition | 11 | 10% |
| Mixed | 17 | 16% |
| Not stated | 5 | 5% |
| Total | 106 | 100% |
Electronic copies of all submissions are available to download from the table below.
| Submission ID number | Submitter | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Auckland Regional Council Public Health Service (PDF, 315 KB) | Support |
| 2 | David Renouf (PDF, 2.89MB) | Mixed |
| 3 | Taranaki Regional Council (PDF, 1 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 4 | Otago Regional Council (PDF, 491 KB) | Opposed |
| 5 | Shane Greene (PDF, 124 KB) | Support |
| 6 | Public Health South (PDF, 803 KB) | Support |
| 7 | Hawke's Bay Regional Council (PDF, 211 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 8 | Waimakariri District Council (PDF, 83 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 9 | Taranaki District Health Board (PDF, 1.69 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 10 | Transpower New Zealand Ltd. (PDF, 116 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 11 | Environment Bay of Plenty Regional Council (PDF, 194 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 12 | Motor Trade Association Inc. (PDF, 97 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 13 | Queenstown Lakes District Council (PDF, 123 KB) | Mixed |
| 14 | Kevin Wood (PDF, 76 KB) | Opposition |
| 15 | Franklin District Council (PDF, 96 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 16 | The Waikato Contaminated Land Liaison Group c/- Environment Waikato (PDF, 135 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 17a | Tauranga City Council (PDF, 61 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 17b | Tauranga City Council (PDF, 143 KB) | |
| 18 | Dunedin City Council (PDF, 1.36 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 19 | PEPANZ (PDF, 232 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 20 | Land Information New Zealand (PDF, 663 KB) | Mixed |
| 21 | New Zealand Law Society (PDF, 98 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 22a | Institute of Environmental Science& Research Limited (PDF, 127 KB) | Opposition |
| 22b | Institute of Environmental Science& Research Limited (PDF, 50 KB) | |
| 23 | Far North District Council (PDF, 1.67 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 24 | Regional Public Health (PDF, 561 KB) | Support |
| 25 | Golden Bay Cement (division of Fletcher Concrete Infrastructure Ltd) (PDF, 461 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 26 | Cameron Gibson & Wells Ltd (PDF, 31 KB) | Opposition |
| 27 | Winstone Aggregates (division of Fletcher Concrete Infrastructure Ltd.) (PDF, 78 KB) | Mixed |
| 28 | Ministry of Health (PDF, 431 KB) | Support |
| 29 | Robert Skinner (PDF, 43 KB) | Support |
| 30 | Ngati Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated (PDF, 98 KB) | Mixed |
| 31 | Watercare Services Limited (PDF, 27 KB) | Support |
| 32 | Auckland City Council (PDF, 4.44 MB) | Mixed |
| 33 | Northland Regional Council (PDF, 51 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 34 | Wood Processors Association of New Zealand (PDF, 77 KB) | Mixed |
| 35 | Environmental Protection Association Inc (PDF, 4.28 MB) | Opposition |
| 36 | Clutha District Council (PDF, 401 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 37 | Carter Holt Harvey (PDF, 135 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 38 | Canterbury District Health Board, Community and Public Health, Healthy Physical Environments (PDF, 54 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 39 | Waikato District Council (PDF, 1.12 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 40 | Christchurch City Council (PDF, 146 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 41 | Environment Waikato (PDF, 2.22 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 42 | New Zealand Defence Force (PDF, 163 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 43 | Whangarei District Council (PDF, 57 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 44 | Marlborough District Council (PDF, 55 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 45a | Frimley Estate (PDF, 115 KB) | Opposition |
| 45b | Frimley Estate (PDF, 628 KB) | |
| 46 | New Zealand Winegrowers (PDF, 50 KB) | Not stated |
| 47 | McDonald's (PDF, 308 KB) | Not stated |
| 48 | RJ Hill Laboratories (PDF, 165 KB) | Opposition |
| 49 | Kapiti Coast District Council (PDF, 53 KB) | Not stated |
| 50 | Wellington City Council (PDF, 88 KB) | Support |
| 51 | IPENZ (PDF, 109 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 52 | Auckland Regional Council (PDF, 813 KB) | Opposition |
| 53 | Tainui Group Holdings Limited (PDF, 274 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 54 | Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited (PDF, 180 KB) | Opposition |
| 55a | The New Zealand Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Research Association (PDF, 339 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 55b | The New Zealand Fertiliser Manufacturers’ Research Association (PDF, 969 KB) | |
| 56a | New Zealand Railways Corporation (PDF, 571 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 56b | New Zealand Railways Corporation (PDF, 3 MB) | |
| 56c | New Zealand Railways Corporation (PDF, 76 KB) | |
| 57 | Babbage Consultants (PDF, 82 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 58 | Resource Management Law Association (PDF, 697 KB) | Support |
| 59 | Waikato-Tainui (PDF, 168 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 60 | Lyttelton Port of Christchurch (PDF, 152 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 61 | Oil Industry Environmental Working Group (PDF, 1.60 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 62 | Richard and Barbara Whiteside (PDF, 25 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 63 | WAIPAC (PDF, 351 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 64 | Gore District Council (PDF, 469 KB) | Mixed |
| 65 | Kaikoura District Council (PDF, 51 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 66 | Rodney District Council (PDF, 13 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 67 | Sue Bennett (PDF, 80 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 68 | Hutt City Council (PDF, 141 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 69 | Paul Lynch (PDF, 565 KB) | Mixed |
| 70 | Newmont Waihi Gold (PDF, 451 KB) | Support |
| 71 | Oceana Gold (New Zealand) Ltd (PDF, 39 KB) | Not stated |
| 72 | Waitakere City Council (PDF, 102 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 73 | Sally Gaw (PDF, 489 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 74 | Metrowater (PDF, 82 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 75 | Palmerston North City Council (PDF, 1.36 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 76 | Solid Energy New Zealand Ltd (PDF, 1.43 MB) | Not stated |
| 77 | Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd (PDF, 754 KB) | Support |
| 78 | Transpacific Industries Group (NZ) Limited (PDF, 77 KB) | Support |
| 79 | Orica New Zealand Ltd (PDF, 254 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 80 | Air New Zealand Ltd (PDF, 346 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 81 | Environment Canterbury (PDF, 460 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 82 | Horizons (PDF, 68 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 83 | Local Government New Zealand (PDF, 265 KB) | Mixed |
| 84a | Contaminated Land Management Sector Group, WasteMINZ (PDF, 147 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 84b | Contaminated Land Management Sector Group, WasteMINZ (PDF, 224 KB) | |
| 85 | South Waikato District Council (PDF, 1.71 MB) | Opposition |
| 86 | Christchurch International Airport Ltd (PDF, 134 KB) | Mixed |
| 87 | Cement and Concrete Association of New Zealand (PDF, 173 KB) | Mixed |
| 88 | Southland District Council (PDF, 229 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 89 | Hastings District Council (PDF, 96 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 90 | Horticulture New Zealand (PDF, 416 KB) | Support |
| 91 | Progressive Enterprises Ltd (PDF, 936 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 92 | Holcim New Zealand (PDF, 39 KB) | Mixed |
| 93 | Waikato District Health Board (PDF, 20KB) | Conditional Support |
| 94 | Gordon Jackman (PDF, 73KB) | Mixed |
| 95 | Davis Ogilvie & Partners (PDF, 22KB) | Support |
| 96 | Tasman District Council (PDF, 206 KB) | Mixed |
| 97 | New Plymouth District Council (PDF, 2.46 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 98 | Greater Wellington Regional Council (PDF, 4.29 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 99 | Central Hawke's Bay District Council (PDF, 1.05 MB) | Mixed |
| 100 | Envirowaste Services Ltd (PDF, 1.33 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 101 | Western Bay of Plenty (PDF, 81 KB) | Mixed |
| 102 | Hamilton City Council (PDF, 159 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 103 | Sustainable Future Institute (PDF, 82 KB) | Opposition |
| 104 | Gisborne District Council (PDF, 59 KB) | Conditional Support |
| 105 | Rotorua District Council (PDF, 1.07 MB) | Conditional Support |
| 106 | Southland Regional Council (PDF, 1.12 MB) | Opposition |
Last updated: 12 May 2010