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Laws and treaties

• Climate Change Response Act
• Environment Act
• Fiordland (Te Moana o Atawhenua) Marine Management Act
• Foreshore and Seabed Act
• HSNO Act
• Ozone Layer Protection Act
• Resource Management Act
• Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Act
• National environmental standards
• Regulatory Impact Statements
• Multilateral Environmental Agreements
• International Trade and Environment
• Waste Minimisation Act

Proposed National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil

Brief summary of the proposed standard

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:

• setting a standard at which land is considered safe for human health
• ensuring that land affected by contaminants in soil is appropriately identified and assessed at the time of being developed and if necessary remediated, or the contaminants contained, to make the land safe for human use.

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:

• Proposed National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil: Discussion Document
• Draft Toxicological Intake Values for Priority Contaminants in Soil
• Draft Methodology for Deriving Soil Guideline Values Protective of Human Health

Process – where are we at?

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.

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).

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:

1. Support – clear support was indicated for the proposed NES
2. Conditional Support – support was indicated for an NES, but more than minor changes to the proposal were requested
3. Opposition – clear opposition to the proposed NES was stated
4. Mixed – aspects of the proposed NES were supported, others were opposed
5. Not stated – no clear statement of support or opposition was given, and this could not be determined from the content of the submission

Electronic copies of all submissions are available to download from the table below.

Further information

• See the contaminated land page for further information, resources and guidance on assessing and managing contaminants in soil.
• For more information on standards, see the national environmental standards under the RMA page.
• See the Resource Management Act page which is a gateway to information about the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA).
• For a full list of publications relating to contaminants in soil refer to the contaminated land publications page. subm,i
• For further questions on the proposed standard contact standards@mfe.govt.nz.

Last updated: 12 May 2010