Claim not supported

Press, 16 July 1979, Page 7

Claim not supported

Assertions that chemicals used by the Prebbleton company, Meadow Mushrooms, Ltd, had caused widespread health problems among residents of the township were not supported by- any medical evidence, the No. 3 Planning Tribunal heard in Christchurch on Thursday. Such evidence would have given more substance to the residents’ views, said Mr C. B. Atkinson, counsel for the company, which appeals against a Paparua County Council decision not to allow it a conditional-use application to expand its Prebbleton factory.

The submission was made in Mr Atkinson’s 90minute closing address at the end of a long hearing.

The tribunal reserved its decision, but the chairman (Mr P. R. Skelton, S.M.) said it was hoped that a decision could be given soon. The case was of considerable importance, he said. Mr Atkinson’s address concentrated on the company’s use of the chemical, methyl bromide, for fumigating.

He referred to its use for many years by the Ministry of Agriculture, commercial growers and operators, and said responsible authorities throughout the world had set safe standard levels far above those to which Prebbleton residents had been exposed.

Three times the amount of methyl brontide used by the company had been used in Nelson to fumigate a shipment of timber, said Mr Atkinson, but he accepted that the company should be asked to prove that the gas was harmless. The total, amount of the chemical used in the factory would be reduced after changes in sterilisation procedures. The

company would increase the use of steam for precrop sterilisation. The company was willing to accept this as a condition of approval, if required, he said.

Special reasons for granting the application existed, including employment opportunities and overseas exchange via the company’s exports, said Mr Atkinson. If the extensions were to take place they should do so in Canterbury, but if it had to build a’new factory the company’s principals would move it to Auckland, its biggest market.

If the company could not expand on its Prebbleton site fragmentation of the operation was not acceptable, said Mr Atkinson.

The expansion could be allowed without interfering with the integrity of the Paparua County Council’s district planning scheme, he said. However, Mr Skelton said it could be viewed as a direct challenge to the county’s change No. 4 to the scheme, which put some limits on factory farming. It was mistakenly reported in Thursday’s issue of “The Press” that a Prebbleton resident objecting to the proposed expansion of the company had agreed with Mr Atkinson that a band of the township’s residents “had a grudge” against Meadow Mushrooms. Margaret Joyce Holdem disagreed with Mr Atkinson’s suggestion. Her main criticism of the Health Department related not to its testing of the gas emissions from the factory’s operation, but to, the construction of the fumigation chambers.

They did not comply in any way with gas-tight construction standards, said Mrs Holdem.