Lead levels alarm

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 6

Lead levels alarm

The Government’s “wait and see” attitude towards reducing lead levels in petrol has alarmed the New Zealand Clean Air Society. The society has written to the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) attacking the Government for its lack of action, which it claims cannot be justified in good faith.

It accuses the Government of placing balance-of-payments consideration above concern for people’s health. Dr H. G. Daellenbach, as chairman of the society’s vehicle pollution committee, strongly urges the Prime Minister to implement immediately the schedule for lowering lead levels recommended by the Clean Air Council. Dr Daellenbach said that New Zealand’s lead levels were the highest of any developed country. Most medical research confirmed the potential health I hazard of continued exposure to the high ambient lead levels, particularly for children. he said. “There is already enough

[evidence to justify that the Government take immediate steps to reduce the lead content of motor spirits.” He said the Prime Minister’s argument that the reduction in motor vehicle usage had prevented any raising of the total lead emissions was correct only in terms of total emission. But it was fallacious in that it completely ignored the fact that the total vehicle usage reduction was largely due to a drastic reduction in long journeys. Urban usage in the major centres might have increased, and it was the urban concentration of airborne lead that imposed immediate health hazards, Dr Daellenbach said. There was little doubt that lead levels close to heavy traffic routes were already alarmingly high. “Your concern not to reduce the amount of petrol jto be got from a barrel of crude oil seems to be dictated largely by the desire to save foreign exchange on the more crude oil needed to compensate,” said the letter.