Air pollution

Press, 22 June 1981, Page 18

Air pollution

Sir,—Janet Matthews (June 19) should note,Lhat until London suffered a heavy smog coincidental with • a ' major cattle show, which resulted in damage to pedigree livestock, little was done to clean the air there. Kiwi farmers are wiser; they avoid showing cattle in Christchurch during the winter smog season. However, the capital city. Wellington, has no smog problems; indeed it. is well served with cheap natural gas and the residents are encouraged by heavy subsidies to use gas as much as possible. At the same time they supplement their energy supplies with the Cook Strait cable and as a back-up the Government arranged for a solid smokeless fuel plant some 50 years ago, and indeed is now refurbishing the whole plant so that supplies will be continuous. Unfortunately, in 1961, the Government misread a message from the local authorities in Christchurch; they thought we wanted smoky fuel, so the Ngakawau briquetting plant was built at some expense for this purpose. This effort apparently has emptied the purse the Government set aside for combating air pollution here. — Yours, etc.. PATRICK NEARY. June 19, 1981. Sir,—l agree with Janet Matthews in deploring the air pollution in Christchurch and suburbs. It seems that those with .authority allow the offenders to continue adding to the problem year after year. Open fires, some in- comparatively new homes, continue to emit any amount of smoke. Owners of vehicles with filthy exhausts are not fined and the vehicles put off the road. Random tests for excessively dirty exhausts would help; warrants of fitness could be withheld when the required standard was not reached. The number of private cars using the inner city could be reduced in the same way as in Singapore. There, at certain times of the day, a fine is imposed on any car carrying fewer than four people. Surely it is better to have clean air, and fewer chest complaints, instead of having to maintain costly hospitals for their treatment. — Yours, etc., JEAN WILLIAMS. June 20, 1981.