Defence Force, please explain
Horizons Regional Council chairman Bruce Gordon has every reason to be miffed about the Defence Force’s failure to be transparent with his organisation.
Residents living near the Ohakea Air Force Base have cause to be unsatisfied, too. And the public and media are entitled to wonder why it took more than 21⁄2 years for worrying test results to trigger public warnings about water contamination relating to the use of firefighting foam.
It looks a lot like the Defence Force got in the way of Horizons doing its job.
‘‘We found out from the media [about the contamination] because the Defence Force didn’t want to share it with us,’’ Gordon said. ‘‘We are the environmental agency and they wanted to keep it from us.’’
What does the Defence Force have to say about this?
We are told there were no relevant New Zealand standards in 2015 and the Defence Force sought expertise. Then in April 2017 the Australian Department of Health issued guidance levels. New Zealand results exceeded acceptable levels and in September 2017 modelling of groundwater indicated there would be problems beyond the Ohakea base boundary.
Horizons wasn’t notified until December 2017.
However, someone on behalf of the Defence Force had earlier asked the regional council for information about water in the area three times without letting on what it would seem this was really all about.
Horizons is unimpressed. More importantly, people drank contaminated water while the Defence Force dithered.
It’s easy to be wise in hindsight, of course, and it seems the Defence Force didn’t initially comprehend the possible ramifications of what it knew. But the requests for information made to Horizons – the first coming in April 2016 – indicate the Defence Force was starting to grasp the implications long before late 2017.
It is understandable that officials in Wellington were wary of alarming the public when they didn’t at the stage know if there was much to worry about. Subsequent events proved a precautionary approach would have been better.
At the very least, officials were not entitled to keep the regional council in the dark.
The Defence Force has chosen not to respond to questions about this.
It was unacceptable for the Defence Force to be secretive in 2016. It is just as unacceptable to stay silent now.