Formal contaminated approach inappropriate
I am an environmental scientist with extensive experience in investigating and managing contaminated sites.
I have become involved the management of the earthworks associated with developments in Otago that have triggered Hazardous Activities and Industries List activity response due to the existing or former land use.
This has required desktop study and a variety of sampling and analyses followed by an appropriate rehabilitation and/or long-term management for sites as varied as a dwelling in a former orchard/vineyard and a multi-lot subdivision of a former plant nursery which featured widespread contamination with lead, arsenic and asbestos.
Applying the MFE template for contaminated site management in perpetuity on these sites is appropriate to the nature of the risk to human health presented by the proposed developments which was that of single standalone dwellings with extensive gardens and lawn. However, this prescriptive approach is being inappropriately applied to all proposals involving sites in Dunedin with pre-1945 residences.
Why should a formal contaminated site management approach be applied when the risks are largely hypothetical or based on isolated incidents? Where are the public health studies showing kids and construction workers in such properties displaying toxic levels of lead in blood? Answer, there are none.
While it may conceivably be justified for a continuation of a single dwelling redevelopment or the establishment of a childcare centre, a prescriptive approach is totally inappropriate for the multitude of urban intensification proposals that involve the common multi-lot development of formerly single-dwelling sites, where what little original soil is not removed is encapsulated under up to an 80% coverage of impervious concrete and seal.
Here the only soil that residents will encounter is imported fill and topsoil for small ornamental box gardens and lawns.
Common sense is lacking in the current approach for a what appears to be a solution in search of a problem.
Hopefully, it will evolve. That wee lot in Caversham is not Mapua Estuary.
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
Uni free speech
In the light of many accolades for Otago University’s free speech policy (ODT, 12 July 24) it would be a token of good faith for the university to announce a downsizing and limitations of the scope of its comms section.
Thus academics and administrators could speak freely and directly to the public, with at least two beneficial consequences.
Firstly, such a move would indicate a degree of trust both internally, between its various parts, and externally, so that the public might be more inclined to believe what they hear. Secondly, it could indicate the beginning of the end of a corporate culture that stifles the proper function of a university.
It might even inspire the university’s leaders to turn their attention to things like agitating for a sensible funding system — EFTS is basically a commercial model — and for expansion of Stephen Joyce’s board of directors-style council to a more representative one.
Think twice before flicking the switch
I take with a grain of salt Sue Kedgley’s advice to the Dunedin City Council against selling its electricity lines network (ODT, July 9, 2024).
In describing Wellington’s experience, she rues the loss of influence that the city council had over its lines company. Three points are worth noting. First, as I pointed out in a letter to The Dominion at the time, the lights in Wellington were then still on, despite the network being in private hands; they’ve been on ever since.
Second, it’s true, as she points out, that distribution networks are monopolies and that once sold councils have no influence over their pricing; but that’s why they are regulated.
And third, as I noted, despite the council’s influence, the Wellington lines company’s dividend return to ratepayers had been derisory.
Ms Kedgley also rails against the subsequent on-selling of the Wellington network, successive sellers supposedly making enormous windfall profits. This suggests either that the council, of which she was a member, had sold it too cheaply in the first place or, perhaps more likely, that successive owners had invested in upgrading the network, thus increasing its value. Such investment might be beyond the reach of councils, as surely Ms Kedgley knows.
There’s just a chance that the Dunedin City Council’s independent advisers might be worth heeding.
Waiting fans
What blighted the All Black game on Saturday was no show of the AB players after the game for a lot of enthusiastic fans waiting for their autographs.
Tiredness or arrogance, you are the judge.
Dennis and Mitchell, 7, Hayes
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
