This report contains the results of the investigation into possible public health effects resulting from the Mapua contaminated site remediation.
The report was written by the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board phs following a request by the Ministry.
The report assesses the public health risks relating to remediation activities of contaminated soil from a former chemical plant at Mapua.
There are four appendices that give more detail of specific health risks, advice and modelling which informed the report. There is also the expert advice from the Organochlorines Technical Advisory Group (OTAG) on the key recommendations to the Ministry in the report.
Purpose
Based on the briefing paper provided by the PCE and initial scoping of the remediation project the following project goala was agreed on by the NMDHB PHS and the MoH: "To investigate the possibility of risk to public health from the Mapua site clean-up from the commencement of the decontamination plant operation (October 2004) to November 2006" The November 2006 date was selected based on the planned end date for the remediation.
The goal was later modified to include the time period from commencement of remediation activities on the site by Thiess Services Ltd (the initial Consent Holder) and to cover any ongoing risk from the site post-remediation resulting in the following modified goal: To investigate the possibility of risk to public health as a result of the Mapua site clean-up from the commencement of the decontamination process.