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Contaminated Sites


Unsustainable industrial and farming activities can result in chemical contamination of soil, air and water. Arsenic, copper, DDT, dieldrin and lead are the lethal legacy of decades of unsustainable agriculture. Successive governments have advocated for the use of toxic pesticides in New Zealand. Officials assured New Zealanders these pesticides were safe, even in the face of evidence that showed otherwise. Some persistent pesticides, like endosulphan, are still allowed, creating the contaminated sites of the future. Successive governments allowed this to happen and so they must help to clean it up.

What's New

Leadership needed on all contaminated sites: Greens

18 Nov 2008

Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty commends the Hawkes Bay Regional Council for serving an abatement notice on Carter Holt Harvey at their contaminated timber treatment plant site at Waikoau.

Time to aim a spotlight on contaminated land - Greens

09 Oct 2008

A Green Party Budget bid aimed at investigating contaminated land in New Zealand has shed a small shaft of light on dioxin contamination at sawmill sites.

A report, published by the Environment Ministry today, sampled 15 new sites where pentachlorophenol or PCP was used, Co-Leader Russel Norman says.

Toxics Policy

02 Oct 2008

This toxics policy is about toxic chemicals and other toxic substances or compounds and their synthesis or extraction and concentration, use and disposal.

New Zealand sports grounds getting toxic treatment

02 Oct 2008

The Green Party says children are being needlessly put at risk by 18 councils around New Zealand that are spraying playing fields with a highly toxic insecticide, banned in more than 50 countries, when a safer alternative is readily available.

MfE lawyers blocked dioxin testing at Mapua

28 Aug 2008

The Ministry for the Environment (MfE) used lawyers to block Tasman District Council testing for dioxin during the recent toxic site clean-up at Mapua. Evidence shows that from May 2005 the TDC was concerned the plant may be emitting dioxins, but until September 2006 MfE prevented tests for the toxic chemicals while the plant continued to operate.
Watch a video of the Russel's question in Parliament

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