Mataura petition delivered to Environment Select Committee

Thursday, 23 July 2020

NZ First list MP Mark Patterson presented his petition urging the Government to remove ouvea premix from Mataura to the Environment Select Committee on Thursday.

NZ First list MP Mark Patterson told the Environment Select Committee that if the hazardous substance left in a Mataura warehouse was in downtown Auckland or Wellington, it would have been gone in weeks.

Instead, six years later the 10,000 tonnes of ouvea premix is still being removed at the rate of one truckload a week, and poses significant risks to the town’s residents.

“On behalf of the people of Mataura, this stuff has to go.’’

Patterson fronted up to the Environment Select on Thursday to present his petition, which requests that ‘the House of Representatives urge the Government to take any means necessary to remove the aluminium dross from the Mataura paper mill site and relocate it to Tiwai Point.’

* Rio Tinto remains committed to removing toxic substance

* Rio Tinto remains committed to Southland premix removal

* Mataura petition to be presented in Parliament

NZ First List MP Mark Patterson, right, receives the signed petition from Laurel Turnbull, of Sort Out the Dross action group in March. They are pictured outside the closed Mataura paper mill, where the ouvea premix is stored.

It was signed by 1534 people.

The ouvea premix, which produces ammonia gas if it gets wet, was left in the flood-prone paper mill building by Taha Asia Pacific when the company went into receivership in 2016.

The substance is a by-product of aluminium dross produced at the New Zealand Aluminium Smelter at Tiwai Point. The smelter does not own the ouvea premix.

The Mataura River threatened the former paper mill building in February, where ouvea premix is being stored. It produces ammonia gas if it gets wet.

Patterson told the committee that the current rate of removal of ouvea premix from the warehouse, which is next to the Mataura River, is ‘’no-where near fast enough,’’ and it would take another two years before the warehouse was emptied.

”It is my view that the core failure that has lead to this petition being heard today is the failure of due diligence by New Zealand Aluminium Smelter…contracting out this environmentally toxic material and the processing of, in this case to a group of cowboys who rode out of town at the first sign of trouble, and to deal with the aftermath of a failed contract,’’ he said.

“The landlord of the paper mill should not have accepted the product or receiving it without a resource consent, it’s questionable whether the Gore District Council should have allowed the subsequent retrospective consent, it’s fair to ask where on earth have Environment Southland been in this process, and the people of Mataura want to know where is their entity of last resort – central Government?”

“It is hard for me to reconcile that if this product was sitting in central Auckland, or central Wellington, in a flood zone, that it would not have been gone in weeks.

“That the people of Mataura are sitting there six years later, pawns in a power play between central Government and a massive multi-national, is unconscionable.’’

Committee chairperson and Coromandel national party MP Scott Simpson asked why the premix could not just be moved faster from Mataura to Tiwai Point, where it was being processed by Inalco.

Patterson said although there was $4.7m funded for the removal through a consortium of entities, the processing capacity of Inalco was an issue.

Invercargill Labour list MP Dr Liz Craig, who sits on the committee, asked what it was that needed to be done for the people of Mataura.

“The frustration here… is the money is actually there, all we have to do is fast-forward the process and its the intransigence of Rio [Tinto] to take it back.’’

National Party East Coast Bays MP Erica Stanford asked why NZAS reneged on a deal to fast track the removal of the premix after the February floods.

Patterson said the future of the smelter was under some reconsideration and ‘’they didn't want to be taking back what they saw as a liability. They essentially wiped their hands of it because they don’t accept that they own it, they say the Government owns it.’’

The Health Select Committee would hear from Ministry for the Environment on the issue next week.

On Tuesday, Environment Minister David Parker said the Ministry for the Environment was actively investigating options to accelerate the removal of a hazardous substance from Mataura