Mapua ‘looked like heaven but was like hell’
Former Ministry for the Environment chief executive Barry Carbon was excited yesterday by what Mapua no longer has to offer its residents and visitors.
As he stood on the remediated ground of what used to be known as New Zealand’s most contaminated site, Carbon remembered the tonnes of DDX (DDT family) insecticide that used to be stuck to the fine soil particles beneath the former Fruitgrowers’ Chemical Company plant.
‘‘There was poison seeping down to the [foreshore] and the tide would come up and take it away,’’ he said. ‘‘That poison was designed to kill things. It just wasn’t right for people to come to a place that looked like heaven but was like hell underneath.’’
Carbon first visited the site soon after he took on the Ministry role in 2002 and was involved with the multimillion-dollar clean up that followed. He was back yesterday for the first time in about 10 years to see the waterside spot.
‘‘My first excitment is what’s not there,’’ he said. ‘‘Because you couldn’t see it, most of it was under the ground, people don’t under- stand the amount of chemical that was in concentrated lots that all had to be ... managed.’’
The clean up was the result of the combined efforts of the Ministry for the Environment, Tasman District Council and residents.
‘‘There was huge involvement of local people, which is powerful,’’ Carbon said.
The first time he saw the site, it was bare ground with ‘‘houses right up to it’’.
Carbon, an Australian, had long experience with mining rehabilitation but had not before seen a situation like Mapua.
‘‘I’d never seen something as bad as this; I mean people had this in their own backyards.’’
Carbon said he believed the residents should feel proud of themselves with regard to the clean-up operation.
‘‘I think the local community and Tasman [district] are pretty heroic.’’
Other ‘‘heroes’’ included his former colleague Fiona Morgan, scientist and ministry adviser Howard Ellis and then Environment Minister Marian Hobbs.
Carbon said after he left the ministry, Morgan ‘‘carried the significant pressure within central government saying we shouldn’t be getting involved, we should leave it to the locals’’.
Ellis used the knowledge gained from the Mapua clean up to help frame New Zealand’s contribution to the international Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
The Mapua clean up offered New Zealand a ‘‘powerful lesson’’ about local government and central government working together to fix historic issues.
‘‘People tend to live in their silos and it’s really important sometimes to say: ‘We’ll stick that silo aside and we’ll do this together’,’’ Carbon said.