West Auckland has seen significant residential growth in areas previously used for horticulture. With these activities comes the potential risk of soil contamination from various chemicals and overexposure to substances found in pesticides.

At a site proposed for redevelopment, soil samples revealed concentrations contaminants, namely arsenic and mercury, above the relevant human health criteria (National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil to Protect Human Health), mercury above environmental criteria (Auckland Unitary Plan).

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This identified that contaminated material must be removed from site before the proposed development can take place to mitigate the potential effects on human health and the environment.

In accordance with the Resource Consent, input was required from a suitably qualified and experienced contaminated land professional (SQEP) to prepare a Site Validation Report, to document the appropriate removal and disposal of the contaminated soils identified at the site.

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Morphum was called on to provide a SQEP to ensure the identified contaminated material at a site proposed for redevelopment had successfully been removed and remediated as per the resource consent condition.

Prior to validation sampling, an initial desktop review of the site was completed, looking at available information from reports on the site’s history. Following this the team began testing for the outlined contaminants that had already been detected on site from the previous investigations.

After testing at the three locations and identifying some areas where further soil removal was required, the appropriate areas were remediated, and the site was considered suitable for the proposed residential land use with no long-term monitoring or managed required. The Morphum team was able to successfully remove the risks to users of the land and our environment that can arise from these issues.

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Undertaking Site Validation like this means that we only remove necessary soil, and that resource consent requirements are met.