Part of Nelson’s T\u0101hunanui Beach will close this week after sawdust contaminated with arsenic and other chemicals was exposed by erosion.<\/p>\n
The sawdust, from a local timber mill, was used as fill for the raised carpark in the 1960s at the back beach, a popular off-leash area for exercising dogs.<\/p>\n
Nelson City Council community services group manager Andrew White said when it was first exposed last year, the sawdust was not considered a pollutant and a decision was made to leave it in place, with regular monitoring.<\/p>\n
“We understood it was not considered a pollutant to the beach and inlet and would break down over time. We were also concerned that removing the sawdust would hasten the erosion occurring in the area.<\/p>\n
“However, we took the prudent approach to continue to monitor the erosion of the material and regularly test for contaminants.”<\/p>\n
Recent monitoring found offcuts of sawn timber that had been chemically treated among the exposed sawdust.<\/p>\n
The contaminants include arsenic, chromium and copper, which the council said are unlikely to pose a risk to human health, as they are “on average below the applicable human health protection standards for recreation land use”.<\/p>\n
But they could pose a risk to the marine environment, as they exceed the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (ANZECC) sediment quality guidelines.<\/p>\n
The carpark at the back beach will close from Wednesday to Friday while the area is excavated.<\/p>\n
“We are now going to excavate pits across the area to determine how widespread the chemically-treated offcuts are throughout the filled area, and this will determine our next steps,” White said.<\/p>\n
“Depending on the results of this investigation, it is quite possible that we will need to remove some or all of the filled area.”<\/p>\n
People and dogs are advised to keep away from the area. The front face of the carpark is already taped off because of the risk of collapse due to erosion.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Part of Nelson’s T\u0101hunanui Beach will close this week after sawdust contaminated with arsenic and other chemicals was exposed by erosion. The sawdust, from a local timber mill, was used as fill for the raised carpark in the 1960s at the back beach, a popular off-leash area for exercising dogs. Nelson City Council community services […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5322,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5323,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5321\/revisions\/5323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}