Patea asbestos risk 'grave'

THE IMPACT of the fire in the disused Patea freezing works could be far worse than authorities are claiming, according to a man who's had first-hand experience removing asbestos.
About 300 Patea residents were evacuated on Wednesday because authorities feared the smoke billowing from the fire was laden with asbestos fibres.
The works closed in 1982, but asbestos had been used as insulation throughout the buildings.
Residents were allowed back to their homes early on Wednesday evening.
But Lindsay Nyman said removing asbestos required specialist skills and was a "very difficult" operation.
"The fire at the works makes the removal a hundred times worse," he said.
Mr Nyman worked for some years with asbestos removal companies in the Sydney area. He has returned and set up a company dealing in asbestos removal, based in Wanganui.
He said a job he did on a burned-out house in a Sydney suburb was typical of the precautions that needed to be taken.
"During the fire, the asbestos cladding on the house had exploded, sending the stuff everywhere.
"The authorities moved out 30 households nearby and they were kept away for three months while we cleaned up that site. We had to demolish the house, remove the contaminated rubbish and then wash down the site and those 30 houses in the vicinity," he said.
"The job took us 12 weeks to finish and then we were working up to 18-hour days."
Mr Nyman said he believed the situation at Patea was grave, and if he was charged with cleaning up the site, the first thing to happen would be the evacuation of the township.
"That would be a first step before we got on site to establish what damage has occurred. But first and foremost it's about the people because this is definitely a health risk," he said.
The next step would involve completely enclosing the site "in a big plastic bubble".
"If the site covers 10 acres, then we have to cover it, because everything has to be done under cover.
"Everyone working on the site would have to be masked up, fully suited in protective clothing with no skin showing at all.
"After the clean-up has finished, everything has to be washed down. It's a contaminated site and it's contaminated the town now," Mr Nyman said.
He had written to both the South Taranaki District Council and the Taranaki Regional Council "half a dozen times" offering his services to explain the problems with dealing with asbestos. He offered to run seminars for their staff.
Mr Nyman said it wasn't a matter of councils being ignorant of the problem either.
"All of them are required to have building registers, which tell them what building materials are in those places."
He said there were plenty of other buildings in the Wanganui region that posed serious risk, including the Marton and Raetihi hospital buildings, the old Waikune Prison, Kiwi St School and Kauangaroa School.
He said he had invited a number of industry experts from Australia to come over to explain what was required and to visit Patea. They were flying in today.
"The Government's done nothing but pay lip service to what is a major problem."
He said while Australia had regulations and standards in place to deal with asbestos removal, New Zealand's controls were nowhere near as extensive.
MASKED UP: Lindsay Nyman with pamphlets and DVDs he brought back from Australia, explaining asbestos removal. He approached two councils offering his expertise, but they didn't respond.