116 sites sites of toxic potential in Tauranga

A lengthening shadow is being cast over Tauranga's clean and green image by an investigation to identify potentially contaminated sites.
Tauranga City Council has so far identified 116 potential troublespots, although no toxic time-bombs have yet been discovered.
The huge task is being co-ordinated by the council's hazardous substances officer Roy Jackson in order to satisfy environmental standards in the Building Act.
The council is in the process of combing its land and aerial photographic records to alert landowners and future developers to where a risk of contamination exists.
"These are potential, not actual contaminated sites.
"We don't have factual information, just indicators," Mr Jackson said.
The indicators were nearly all historical and predated the advent of timber treatment nasties like polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).
The only site where PCBs were known to have been used in Tauranga was the old Odlins Mill where Rebel Sport was now located. Mr Jackson said that site was cleaned up years ago. He stressed that immediate action would be taken if they discovered a dangerous toxic site but nothing had been found to raise any fears in city residential areas.
The council was building a register of sites and talking to landowners who could disagree or help verify the information.
"There is no way we would come along and say 'this is contaminated' without furnishing proof," he said.
Council records were mainly disclosing how, many years ago, any low-lying or swampy patch of land became a convenient rubbish dump.
A prime example of a former dump was the Glasgow Street industrial area.
Mr Jackson said they were identifying all former land uses that had the potential to contaminate the soil, such as the old gas works in Grey Street, former service station sites and farms which may have had a sheep dip or chemical storage shed.
The council did not have to prove the land was contaminated - its responsibility was to divulge historic information that pointed to possible contamination and then enter it on property records.
Nearly all the 116 sites identified so far were in heavily built up industrial and commercial areas of Tauranga.
None were in residential areas.
Flagging potentially contaminated sites meant tests would need to be carried out if the property was redeveloped in future.
"All we are saying is that there is the potential for contamination because it has not been proven otherwise," he said.
"I believe that Tauranga is in damn good shape and we are fortunate."
Mr Jackson said a key area was rural land being developed and incorporated into the city and the dangers posed by people coming into contact with contaminated soils as a result.
Tauranga environmentalist and former Environment Bay of Plenty councillor, Karen Summerhays, said a big issue coming up for local authorities was the general level of chemical residues like copper and arsenic in soils on farmland zoned for future development