Do the People of Rolleston remember Mapua? In the 20th century Mapua became one of the most contaminated sites in New Zealand due to pesticide residues in the soils from a now defunct factory, but has since had a major cleanup operation. In 1932 the Fruitgrowers Chemical Company built a plant to manufacture pesticides for use in the numerous orchards in the surrounding area. In the 1940s the factory produced organomercury and organochlorine pesticides, including DDT, DDD, dieldrin, 2,4-D and paraquat. Organophosphorous pesticides were produced from the 1960s. By 1978, 124 chemicals were being used to produce 84 different formulations. The plant closed in 1988. The Tasman District Council took over the site in 1989, and measures were taken[by whom?] to prevent leaching of the chemicals into the adjoining Waimea Inlet. In 1999, the Ministry for the Environment allocated funding for a remediation programme, with ‘on-site’ processing selected as the preferred remediation option.[4] Two years later, the Tasman District Council awarded a contract for remedial work to a partnership of Theiss Services (an Australian remediation specialist) and Environmental Decontamination Limited (EDL) of Auckland. Thiess was the main contractor and held the resource consents to carry out the work. EDL supplied the remediation technology: Mechano-Chemical Dehalogenation (MCD). The site was handed back to the Tasman District Council in November 2007.[5] In May 2012, a Department of Labour report [6] found that some of the 30 people who worked on the cleanup suffered health issues including respiratory problems, nausea, collapsing and fatigue.[7][8][9]
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 02:13:37 +0000