New air rules hard to meet, mayor says

Timaru mayor Damon Odey says national air quality targets are ‘‘unachievable’’.

ECan adopted the new Canterbury Air Regional Plan, recommended by independent hearing commissioners, at its meeting last week. The plan aims to continue to improve air quality across the region.

ECan commissioner David Bedford said the decision marks the first time Timaru and Waimate have had air rules which will see new, cleaner-burning technologies progressively replace older-style wood burners.

The plan includes measures such as replacing old wood burners with new clean burning ones, not allowing wood burners to emit visible smoke for longer than 15 minutes at start-up, and controlling burning and odours in rural areas that were previously uncontrolled.

Industry will be allowed to to continue providing it contributes no additional pollution to the air shed. The decision will be notified on October 1 and is likely to be operative in December depending on whether any appeals are made, and how long they take to resolve.

Air quality is measured by particulate matter in the air smaller than 10 micrometres in diameter (PM10). A reading of more than 50 micrograms per cubic metre indicates high pollution under the national environmental standard.

The Government’s national standard requires Timaru, Waimate, Ashburton, Christchurch and Kaiapoi to have no more than three days a year with PM10 over 50pgm3 from September 1, 2016 and no more than one day from September 1, 2020.

So far this year Timaru has had 26 days of high air pollution.

Odey said looking at the air pollution statistics might give a perception of Timaru being a ‘‘dirty industrial town’’.

He put responsibility for air quality squarely with ECan but said the Timaru District Council has worked closely with the regional council for a number of years to improve the situation in Timaru.

‘‘The target at the moment is not achievable in the short amount of time but the density of particles has come down,’’ Odey said.

‘‘As long as we are on the trajectory to reduce instances and density of particles and as long as we are committed and working towards the end goal, there won’t be major repercussions,’’ he said.

Community and Public Health medical officer of health Dr Daniel Williams said in an email that air pollution causes significant illness and premature death in South Canterbury.

‘‘Air pollution’s effects are often hidden, because it makes common illnesses such as lung and heart disease worse,’’ Williams said.

The Health and Air Pollution in New Zealand study estimated air pollution was responsible for causing or hastening 30 to 40 deaths each year in the Timaru district, he said.

‘‘These deaths are preventable. We know from ECan that domestic fires are the main culprit for Timaru’s air pollution.

‘‘This means there are things we can do to help keep our community safe such as using fires correctly by not burning green, wet or treated wood, plastics or household waste, and by replacing inefficient heating.’’