Minister’s Statements Described As Untrue

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 14

Minister’s Statements Described As Untrue

Statements by the Minister of Health (Mr McKay) that the Health Department had received no serious complaints of air pollution and that there was no danger to health from the present level of air pollution were untrue, said the president of the New Zealand Clean Air Society (Mr I. R. Densem) yesterday.

Mr Densem said he had written to the Minister to ask him to correct statements attributed to him because of the vital importance of clean air to the health of the community. Mr Densem said that in Christchurch on June 12 a meeting of responsible, in-

formed persons, including a member of Parliament, a city councillor, several interested D.S.I.R. and Health Department staff and the chairman of the Regional Planning Authority’s air pollution committee agreed on two resolutions.

This must surely be regarded as a “serious complaint,” he said, and copies were delivered by hand to the Minister's office in Wellington on June 18. “Danger Already” Referring to the alleged lack of danger to health, Mr Densem said that if the findings of the investigation committee which produced the United States Department of Health criteria for sulphur oxides were accepted as being correct, there was a danger to health already in certain urban areas of New Zealand. ‘■These criteria were produced for the guidance of United States municipalities and are certainly objectionable to many vested interests, but nearly all public health requirements suffer this objection,” Mr Densem said. “The major known problems at present are restricted to certain localities—Hamilton, the Hutt, Christchurch, and Dunedin. A D.S.I.R. report makes it clear that at least in Christchurch during the winters of 1961 and 1964 a very large urban area was suffering dangerously high levels. Readings In June “This cannot have improved, because the Government Analyst in Christchurch on June 20 said that none of the 12 highest June readings of 24-hour averages taken since 1964 were below 14 milligrams per 100 cubic metres.

“But as there is little monitoring of short-term—two hour to four-hour —concentrations being done, it cannot be stated with certainty that these are the only areas being affected. As far as we are aware, a suitable portable sulphur dioxide recorder does 'not exist in the country.”