Open Letter to Goff on the Regional Seal Extension Program
OPEN LETTER
Mayor Phil
Goff
Auckland Council
Level 27, 135 Albert Street
Auckland CBD
Attention: His Worship
Mayor Phil Goff
Cc: All Councillors, Chair and CE
Auckland Transport
1 November 2017
Dear Mayor
Goff,
Re: Open Letter on the Regional Seal Extension
Program
The draft 10 Year Budget has a planned seal
extension budget somewhere between $1.2 and $3.3 million per
annum. This is too low and the purpose of this open letter
is to bring this concern to the attention of all Councillors
and the Mayoral office.
This is a regional issue with
Franklin, the Hauraki Islands, Rodney and Waitakere having
868 kilometres of unsealed roads. This represents 12% of the
total legal road network of Auckland. Not all of the
unsealed network requires sealing. However, a third of the
unsealed network now presents a health and safety hazard
along with numerous other adverse effects.
An
investment of $10 million per annum for the next 10
years would achieve up to a third of the unsealed
roading network being sealed. I am requesting of you, Mr
Mayor, to accelerate the seal extension program by
increasing the budget to this level. The health effects of
road dust must be addressed with all urgency and without any
further delay.
Dust from unsealed roads also create
economic costs from reduced productivity of land, crops and
livestock, and increased road and vehicle maintenance costs.
Noting, animals also breath in the dust and their health is
also affected via lung absorption of harmful dust
particles.
Airbourne dust from unsealed roads can deposit
on rooves contaminating drinking water, as well as deposit
on gardens and houses causing nuisance and reducing
amenity.
What is
dust?
This dust is defined as
dry, solid particles that range in diameter from less than 1
micron in size to 100 microns. Particles less than 10
microns in size reach the alveolar region of the lungs when
inhaled.
Road dust monitoring in New
Zealand.
Monitoring of the 10
micron sized particles on unsealed roads by the New Zealand
Transport Agency has revealed multiple exceedances of health
based air quality criteria. The monitoring found that
ambient levels of 10 micron particles are directly
correlated with traffic, and measured maximums were up to
two to three times above the accepted national level.
The
Auckland Unitary Plan has zoned vast areas of rural Auckland
as Countryside Living allowing subdivision and increased
traffic as a right of current land ownership. Increased
population growth of Auckland’s satellite townships is
also well underway due to rezoning. Combined with
Council’s increased tourism promotion of coastal and rural
activities traffic volumes on unsealed roads are up and are
steadily increasing.
Even low volume roads propose a
combination of safety and health hazards along with the
other adverse effects. (Refer to Referenced
literature).
Health effects of road
dust
Historically, airborne
dust from unsealed roads was considered primarily a nuisance
issue. However, the full health impacts of suspended
particles (dust in the air) is now well recognised
throughout New Zealand.
There is now widespread, global
scientific consensus that exposure to particulate pollution
causes predominantly respiratory and cardiovascular effects,
ranging from subclinical functional changes (e.g. reduced
lung function) to symptoms (increased cough, exacerbated
asthma) and impaired activities (e.g. school or work
absenteeism) through to doctors’ or emergency room visits,
hospital admissions and death (World Health Organisation).
The effects, in terms of escalating severity, are described
as increased visits to doctors for many individuals,
hospital admission for some individuals and death for a few
individuals. The exposure-response relationship is
essentially linear and there is no ‘safe’ threshold;
adverse effects on health are observed at all measured
levels (World Health Organisation).
In 2013, the
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
classified particulate matter as carcinogenic based on an
increased risk of lung cancer. This is consistent with the
World Health Organisation global guidelines for particulate
matter, which are based on all airborne particles having the
same potential to cause adverse health effects, regardless
of chemical composition or physical
characteristics.
Auckland Council recognises the adverse
health effects of vehicular pollution and is investing
heavily into reducing these emissions through alternative
transport modes and user taxes. Yet dust particles less than
10 microns in size are just as potentially harmful as diesel
particulates, but this identified hazard is without the
corresponding preventative investment enjoyed by the urban
population.
New research from the World Health
Organization further indicates particulate matter is
associated with artherosclerosis, adverse birth outcomes,
childhood respiratory disease as well as Alzheimer’s
disease and other neurological endpoints, cognitive
impairment, diabetes, systemic inflammation and aging.
In
addition to the above, the Ministry for the Environment
Good Practice Guide for Assessing and Managing Dust
notes that there may also be health effects from
contaminants associated with (road) dust (MfE,
2016):
• Some mineral dusts contain quartz (silica),
the finer fractions of which can cause the lung disease
known as silicosis when present at high
concentrations;
• Some dust may contain toxic metals
such as mercury or lead;
Irrespective of road dust
composition, those most at risk to particulate pollution
will be the elderly, the very young, the unborn, those with
pre-existing heart or lung conditions, those with asthma or
diabetes, and smokers. Many communities affected by high
levels of dust pollution from traffic on unsealed roads tend
to comprise high proportions of these already particularly
at-risk groups.
In a nutshell, the Auckland Council needs
to address this health hazard.
Six proactive and
practical funding answers.
In
my opinion the Mayoral Office must;
1. a) recognise the
hazards of dust from unsealed roads as a significant hazard
and,
2. b) determine funding options to accelerate the
sealing program to minimise or isolate the hazard.
Seal
extension (new road sealing) funding already has its own
unique funding line in the previous 10 Year Budget. This
uniqueness is because the previous Mayor, Councillors and
Auckland Council officers recognised the importance of
advancing the sealing program.
The previous Council chose
to increase the seal extension budget using funding provided
through the Interim Transport Levy. I understand this was
always intended to be lifted significantly this LTP
round.
I have made numerous presentations to Auckland
Transport, including three meetings presenting to their
Board of Directors on this subject. Their message has been
clear and consistent. Auckland Transport will happily seal
as many kilometres of road as Auckland Council gives them
the funding to do so.
The current levels of funding from
Auckland Council are grossly inadequate, boarding on
negligence regarding public health and safety. This must be
corrected immediately by lifting funding to $10 million per
annum for a 10 year period ie: $100 million capital program
over 10 years.
My challenge to you Mr Mayor, with the
vast resources at your disposal through both the Mayoral
Office and the Finance Division of Auckland Council, is to
find the funding solution to this. It should not be up to me
as a Councillor representing one Ward to provide these
solutions. However, to be helpful and constructive I have
identified six proactive and practical funding
solutions for you to consider.
Option 1:
Funding from the General Rate
take
The unsealed network
ranges across the regions of Franklin, the Hauraki Islands,
Rodney and Waitakere. Therefore, a capital investment
program funded from the General rate take leveraged against
Auckland Council’s Treasury’s borrowing power is
justifiable. Many Aucklanders from across the region who do
not live on the unsealed road network use the network. They
either currently drive on these roads, have driven on these
roads, or they or their families may do so in the
future.
This is particularly the case on weekends and
public holidays when Aucklanders drive to coastal, forest
and other rural destinations for recreation. The
international and domestic tourism market does the same
throughout the week. These people are currently being
exposed to a health risk which Auckland Council must
mitigate.
Thus, another possibility open to you is to
accelerate the road sealing program using existing regional
funding from regional general rates.
Option 2:
NZTA Subsidy
The Mayoral
Office, Council Officers and representation from Auckland
Transport could unite to lobby the Crown to bring back the
Financial Assistance Rate (FAR) subsidy for rural seal
extensions which was in place with the legacy
Councils.
This would be a very real win for Auckland
Council, Auckland Transport and the Auckland
ratepayers.
Thus you may consider this as a priority
conservation with the new Minister of
Transport.
Option 3: Using the Crown
Infrastructure Partnership model as a capex
tool.
Investigate use of the
Crown Infrastructure Partners (CIP) to facilitate
partnerships between the Government and Auckland Council to
enable private investment in roads as to unlock rural land
for development. Under this model, the debt would be covered
by private investors.
Exploring this funding mechanism
with the new Government is an option.
Option 4:
Regional Fuel Tax
If a regional
fuel tax is introduced, you have the very real option of
lobbying for some of this to be earmarked for accelerating
the seal extension program.
There are representatives
from Local Government New Zealand, the New Zealand Transport
Agency, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment,
Iwi, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for the
Environment and the Ministry of Health all on the Road Dust
Working Group of the Road Controlling Authorities Forum (NZ)
Inc who can assist Auckland Council with the necessary key
research, experts and data to achieve this outcome.
This
may be the simplest option to address the issues raised in
this letter.
Option 5: Target
Rates
The Local Board areas of
Franklin, the Hauraki Islands (Waiheke and Great Barrier),
Rodney and Waitakere could introduce a targeted rate for
road sealing under your direction in the next 10 Year
Budget. This would, however, introduce an increase in rates
for ratepayers who believe they already pay a General rate
to Auckland Council to provide core Council services,
including safe roading.
The introduction of both a
regional fuel tax plus an additional targeted rate for
transport improvements is likely to receive a negative
ratepayer reaction. This would be further compounded if
other types of regional targeted rates were also to be
introduced on top of the fuel tax and a transport targeted
rate.
Option 6: Funding from the Rural Rate
take
Rural Auckland receive
fewer Council services that their urban counterparts. To
reflect this a rating differential is applied to lifestyle
and rural properties. However, there is still a large
quantum of rural rates being collected totalling in the tens
of millions, in return for minimal local expenditure on
Council services ie: in many cases only the maintenance of
an unsealed road is provided by Council through the general
rural rates collected.
Therefore, a final possibility
open to you is to accelerate the road sealing program by
using more of the existing rural and lifestyle general rates
specifically for this purpose.
In closing, my intention
is to more fully inform you about the safety and health
hazards, along with numerous other adverse effects, the
unsealed network presents with respect to health & safety
legislation, the Auckland Plan and public wellbeing. It is
my hope that you will consider this open letter as a
catalyst to correct the situation.
Equally, while I
realise the 10 Year Budget is yet to go out for public
consultation, I am concerned funding to accelerate the seal
extension program has not been identified as a priority
early in the drafting of the 10 Year Budget
process.
There are many priorities to juggle in the 10
Year Budget but protecting the health and safety of
Aucklanders must surely be of utmost importance.
Again, I
trust you will receive this as a positive input.
Yours
sincerely
Cr Greg Sayers
Councillor Rodney
Ward
Auckland
Council
Reference
Material:
Road Controlling Authorities Forum (Nz) Inc.
Special Interest Group: Low Volume Roads.
April
2017.