Tank Farm clean-up set to begin

By ANNE GIBSON

A contaminated site at the Tank Farm on Auckland's waterfront is about to be cleaned up ready for redevelopment.

BP Oil NZ plans to clean up 2ha of its leasehold contaminated fuel storage site which has two addresses - 58-108 Hamer St and 36-90 Brigham St at the seaward end of the Tank Farm.

The Tank Farm is part of the Western Reclamation between the Viaduct Harbour and the Harbour Bridge.

BP will truck out 30 to 40 loads of soil over a two- to three-day period, removing about 200 tonnes of polluted material from the land, which was used mainly for bulk diesel and AVGAS storage until 1995.

The 17ha Tank Farm, which includes Wynyard Wharf, has been identified as ripe for residential, retail and commercial development because of its location on the city's waterfront. But first, the brownfields industrial site has to be cleaned up.

Leases are expiring in the area but are held in the meantime by various oil companies, including Shell and Mobil. Their tenures terminate over various terms up to 2019.

The Tank Farm is owned by Ports of Auckland, which leases it to oil companies.

Yesterday, the port made a Stock Exchange announcement saying it had reached agreement with BP on the site, which had caused controversy between the two last year resulting in a legal scrap.

The port will take over BP's lease on four sites and a fifth plot will go back to the port after June.

The Tank Farm occupies a prominent site and is expected to be developed for residential and recreational use, with commercial and marine activities similar to those around the Viaduct Harbour.

"The applicant has stated that consultation has been undertaken and is ongoing between the landowner, various public agencies, neighbours, iwi groups and interest groups," the council's report on BP's resource application said. "At present, the applicant has no fixed plans for the future use of the site."

Ports of Auckland chief executive Geoff Vazey said yesterday he was pleased with the outcome of discussions with BP and the change on the leases.

BP managing director Peter Griffiths said he was also happy with the resolution.

The port's group manager (corporate affairs), Bronwen Jones, said part of the deal was that BP would continue to clean up the sites it had leased.

The plots have been decommissioned and the above-ground storage tanks, pipe work and other structures dismantled and tank foundations and oil trap structures removed.

BP's application for resource consent for the decontamination went to Auckland City Council this month and it has also applied to the Auckland Regional Council for consents.

The BP sites are now level and have been planted with grass. The remaining above-ground structures are an office/workshop and diesel/petrol storage tank for an adjacent BP boat shop.

"The soils and groundwater underlying the site have been impacted by petroleum hydrocarbon contamination [primarily diesel range] over many years," the council's report said.

"Although the hydrocarbon contamination of soil and groundwater has been assessed to not pose an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment during general site use, residual contamination may present a risk to human health."

BP plans to truck the contaminated soil to a landfill and has applied for non-notified consent to excavate the soil.

Last June, BP won a case against Ports of Auckland over the scale of a toxic land clean-up on the site.

In a case which went to the High Court at Auckland, BP said it leased 3ha of the port's land and sought a decision that notices alleging it had breached its leases were invalid.

It won this and got an injunction stopping the port terminating its leases and an order for it to renew a lease on BP's Hamer St site.