ARSENICAL DEPOSITS IN SOIL

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 152, 24 March 1938, Page 10

ARSENICAL DEPOSITS IN SOIL

Live Stock Mortality DETAILED INVESTIGATION TO BE MADE Following the discovery that mortality among live stock on a farm near Waiotapu was associated with the occurrence of arsenic in appreciable quantities in surface and spring waters and in certain muds and swamp soils, a preliminary survey of the position as affecting other farms in the Reporoa settlement has been carried out by officers of the Chemistry Section and Live Stock Division of the Department of Agriculture. The results of this survey were announced by the Minister of Lands, Hon. F. Langstone, and the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. W. Lee Martin, in a joint statement issued last evening. “Using a rapid field-testing method it has been found that deposits containing arsenic are more widespread than was first anticipated,” said the Ministers. “Very little arsenic is actually in solution in the water, the deposits being the product of slow action over a period of years. Danger to stock appears to arise from the accidental swallowing of mud stirred up by cattle entering the water to drink, rather than from arsenic in solution in the water itself. There is no evidence to indicate that arsenical soils or waters occur in other parts of the Rotorua district or that bush sickness is in any way associated with arsenic. “Very few animals actually affected with the chronic arsenical poisoning trouble have been shown to officers of the Department of Agriculture, but symptoms as described by the settlers are quite distinct from bush sickness. The local name of ‘the paralysis' describes one of the most prominent symptoms. Affections of the joints, dryness and harshness of skin and hair, and the sudden onset and course of the disease distinguish it from bush sickness, and are’ all indicative of arsenic poisoning. “As a result of the preliminary survey it has been decided to carry out a detailed investigation, and to survey and map the distribution of arsenic in soils and waters on a paddock to paddock basis over the whole area where it is found to occur.

“One of the affected farms is being placed by the Lands Department at the disposal of the Department of Agriculture to facilitate the carrying out of experiments to determine the actual course and symptoms of the trouble, and the best methods of diagnosing and combating it. Certain experiments are also to be carried out at the Wallaceville laboratory, and by the Chemistry Section of the Department of Agriculture. An officer of the latter section, Mr. I. G. Mclntosh, is to be stationed in the Reporoa district to undertake the detailed survey, and it is hoped that h e will receive the full co-operation of farmers, who will be informed as to the danger or otherwise inherent in the use of any particular water supplies on their farms.

“When the whole position has been mapped it is expected that the departments concerned will be able to give valuable advice to settlers in the Reporoa district that will enable them to avoid losses and to increase their production. Among measures that may be immediately suggested are: The fenc-ing-off of strongly contaminated streams, mud-holes, etc.; enlarging and fencing-off of drains which tap arsenical springs; avoidance of hard grazing, and the removal of stock during wet weather from paddocks where the soils or muds are arsenical.”