Mount Maunganui air quality advocate’s plea to Bay of Plenty Regional Council

Bay of Plenty regional councillors have been told they are all the Mount Maunganui community has in its fight to improve the area’s air pollution problem.

The plea came from Emma Jones, from Clear the Air charitable trust, who spoke during the public forum section of a Bay of Plenty Regional Council meeting this week.

Jones referred to a report released by Bay of Plenty health authority Toi Te Ora in July showing that poor air quality at Mount Maunganui was creating significant health risks and premature deaths.

The report summarised data findings from 2019 to 2022 that focused on particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and sulphur dioxide. PM10 is a harmful mixture of particles suspended in the air that do not exceed 10 micrograms in diameter.

It found modelling for PM10 (only) contributed to an estimated 13 premature deaths in Mount Maunganui each year. It also found PM10 within the Mount Maunganui Industrial Airshed was still high and exceeded World Health Organisation guidelines.

When the report was released in July, Toi Te Ora Public Health’s Dr Jim Miller said the level of air pollution in Mount Maunganui was among the worst in New Zealand.

Jones, who was also part of the Mount Maunganui Air Quality Working Party, told councillors the local community was “really concerned”, particularly about pollution reaching schools downwind from the industrial area.

“We are really pushing for change.”

Jones said she wanted the regional council to use the report as part of its tool kit “to put pressure on the industry to come to the table and make changes on their own accord”.

The report was “extremely valuable” and provided “concrete evidence” of what many in the Mount community already knew, she said.

“We live it. We have our senses - we can smell it, see, touch the black dust, taste it sometimes. We don’t need health data to tell us these smells are bad, this dust is bad. But just having that research - that we are at risk of chronic exposure to these contaminants is bad - helps.”

Mount Maunganui Airshed. Image / BOPRC

The report compared Mount Maunganui with Ōtumoetai and found each year there were five extra deaths and 10 extra hospitalisations related to air quality. The estimated social cost of additional deaths and ailments was $22 million.

Jones said she believed “industry” would commission its own experts to try to debunk the Toi Te Ora report. She pleaded for the regional council to be mindful of this when considering the Mount’s air quality in the future.

“I ask that you get behind it and that things aren’t delayed due to industry. We would just like to see them step forward and bear more of the burden around improvement of the community’s air.”

Chairman Doug Leeder said the council had to base its decision-making on the available science, despite each councillor’s personal views on the matter.

Jones responded: “If industry is paying experts to try to debunk the report, if that comes to the table, that has to be taken in the context that it’s being paid for.

“You guys are all we’ve got as a community. That’s all I’m trying to say. Yes, follow the science - the science is air pollution is harmful to human health and Mount Maunganui has an air pollution problem. That’s what it boils down to.”

Councillor Ron Scott commended Jones for her passion and said he became interested in the regional council due to his work with the Bay of Plenty District Health Board and seeing “the downstream effects” of air pollution.

Regional councillors Stuart Crosby (left) and Ron Scott at a Bay of Plenty Regional Council meeting on air quality at Mount Maunganui. Photo / Alex Cairns

“The report’s made statements in there which health professionals, Toi Te Ora, haven’t made before in terms of the deaths [linked to] the exposure.”

Councillor Kevin Winters referenced his time as mayor of Rotorua when it faced air pollution issues due to wood burners.

“There were something like 35 exceedances of PM10 in a two-month period.

“Everyone in Rotorua was virtually passive smoking during that time.”

Winters said the local council created bylaws and worked with the regional council in enforcing these.

“There’s a lesson here for Mount Maunganui. In that 15 years, we’ve gone from 35 down to none.”

In terms of Mount Maunganui’s air quality issues, the regional council had stringent resource consent rules and vigilant monitoring, Winters said.

Councillor Kevin Winters at a Bay of Plenty Regional Council meeting on air quality at Mount Maunganui. Photo / Alex Cairns

“We take it very, very seriously.”

Winters said that in 2019 there had been 19 exceedances in the Mount air shed. In the 2023/24 year, there had so far been zero.

Jones said she believed “what’s coming out of the stacks at Mount Maunganui” was “very different” to Rotorua’s wood burner problem.

The report noted there were significant gaps in long-term monitoring of other chemical emissions such as Benzene - a known carcinogen - and its direct impact was not known.

“How many millions of tonnes of these chemicals go into the air right next to our schools?” Jones said.

Regional council chief executive Fiona McTavish responded that the Mount Maunganui Industrial AirShed was the most monitored airshed in New Zealand.

Councillors Matemoana McDonald, Andrew von Dadelszen, Paula Thompson and Jane Nees refrained from commenting on the matter due to their roles on the Plan Change 13 (air quality) Appeals Subcommittee and the Regional Policy Statement Proposed Change 6 (NPS-UD).

No decisions on air quality were made at the meeting.

Kiri Gillespie is an assistant news director and a senior journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, specialising in local politics and city issues. She was a finalist for the Voyager Media Awards Regional Journalist of the Year in 2021.