Tender for clean-up of toxic Northland site nearly finalised

Toxic chemicals stored in rusty and leaking drums and contained piled up at the disposal facility in Ruakaka. Photo / Northland Regional Council

Work on cleaning up a site in Northland where more than one million litres of toxic chemicals are stored is expected to start in the next three weeks, with ratepayers initially picking up the bill.

Whangārei District Council is being forced to oversee the clean-up of the disposal facility on Allis Bloy Place in Ruakākā after the owners failed to comply with an Environment Court order to do so.

Ratepayers will initially pick up the tab but the court has allowed WDC to go ahead with the cleanup work and bill the owners.

The approximate cost of the clean-up will be worked out once WDC finalised the successful tenderer for the job in the next three weeks.

Three tenders from commercial operators were submitted by deadline on June 5 and they are being evaluated.

Solvents and industrial chemical waste are stored in old, damaged, rusty and leaking drums and containers on the property pose significant risks to the environment.

In June 2008, WDC granted Sustainable Waste Management (SWM) resource consent to store up to 50,000 litres of solvents and chemicals in conjunction with the operation of a recycling plant.

That land was subdivided and the area to which the resource consent applied was transferred to Sustainable Solvents.

Separate consents granted by the Northland Regional Council to SWM for discharge to air were later transferred to Sustainable Solvents. No consents have been granted in respect of discharges on to land or into water.

An investigation by NRC in late 2014 found part of the site was contaminated and WorkSafe New Zealand issued a compliance order that SSL bring no further hazardous substances on to the site.

In early January 2017, Sustainable Solvents Group, Sustainable Solvents, and Smith were convicted of discharging contaminants and ordered to pay a maximum of $214,146 to NRC from the sale of the property, and other enforcement orders were also made.

The sale of the property and business never occurred.

About four months later, NRC found hazardous substances stored on unsealed land, no secondary containment, and a pump indicating that untreated contaminated stormwater had been pumped on to land.

An abatement notice was issued but it was not complied with as a further inspection found about one million litres of solvents and chemicals at the site, with waste still stored on unsealed ground.

WDC applied for and secured the interim enforcement order against Sustainable Solvents Group, Sustainable Solvents and its owner, Brian Smith, Solvent Services New Zealand and its directors, John Manus Pretorius and Aaron Baldwin.

Despite being contacted several times by the 'Northern Advocate' Smith has declined to comment.