Steel plant accused of polluting neighbourhood

The Pacific Steel plant turns scrap cars into building steel. Photo / Brett Phibbs

A neighbour wants extra air and soil testing around the site of a steel factory if the plant in Manukau is allowed to keep belching toxic fumes for two more decades.

Pacific Steel, part of Fletcher Steel, will find out this week if it can continue discharging contaminants into the air from its steel recycling operation at James Fletcher Drive.

The factory provides work for about 300 staff and 100 contractors.

Manager Ian Jones says the jobs are an economic boost to Otahuhu and the company keeps up with its environmental obligations.

But neighbour Roger Fowler, whose house is about 500m from the factory, is worried it may be contributing to an air quality problem he says is affecting children with asthma and could be contaminating vegetablegardens.

The factory produces metallic particles, dioxin and carbon monoxide as it turns old cars and other scrap metal into building steel.

Mr Jones said about $6 million had been spent cleaning up air discharges, and the site was far more environmentally friendly than it was when it opened in the 1960s.

But housing had since moved closer and there were homes and vegetable gardens 500m from the factory.

Of the 108 people who made submissions on the air quality permit, 73 were against it.

In a report to Auckland Regional Council commissioners deciding the factory's future, air quality officer Mike Harvey said the health risks and environmental effects were minor.

But he said the factory should be given a 15-year air discharge permit, not 35 years as the company originally wanted or 20 years as it suggested at the hearing.

The report said levels of heavy particulate in the air near the factory could exceed health guidelines on bad days, but this was mostly because of high background pollution from other sources including home fires and cars.

Council officers looked at the risk of dioxin poisoning from vegetable gardens and found that government guidelines would be exceeded only if someone ate 100 per cent homegrown produce and did not till the soil for 67 years - an unlikely combination.

But Mr Fowler said that one some days a fine brown dust settled on clothing on washing lines, and they did not know where it came from.

Early childcare and community centres were due to open nearby, he said, so he called for four air quality monitoring stations around the site and soil tests in nearby vegetable gardens to monitor dioxin levels.