Thursday 1 July 2004

Council offers testing to Sandilands property owners

The Christchurch City Council is to offer the owners of 78 private properties at Sandilands the opportunity to have their properties tested for potential contaminants.

The properties are among 84 privately owned parcels of land on the ex landfill site at Sandilands. Six of the properties have already been tested by the Council, with five found to exceed New Zealand guidelines for some contaminants.

Testing of sites is to be done free of charge to property owners, with funding being made available from the Council and the Ministry for the Environment Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund.

Twenty four Council owned Sandilands properties have previously been tested. As a result, seven were remediated due to contamination levels that exceeded guidelines.

A letter will be sent to each of the 78 property owners tomorrow, inviting them to a public meeting on 8 July to discuss the proposal. A consent form for the testing will be included with the letter.

Testing will be carried out by environmental consultants, Montgomery Watson Hazra NZ Ltd between 9 August and 17 September, this year. It will involve small plugs of earth being taken from each property with little noise and no heavy machinery used.

Test results will be available before the end of the year.

Once the test results are known, the Council will apply to the Ministry for the Environment for assistance in funding remediation of properties, if necessary.

The public meeting will be held at the Linwood Rugby Football Clubrooms, Kearneys Rd at 7.30pm on 8 July. Representatives from the Council, Montgomery Watson Hazra NZ Ltd and the Medical Officer of Health will be at the meeting to answer questions.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

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