A settlement conference regarding the removal of ouvea premix resumed yesterday, with a view to finalising solutions.
About 8500 tonnes of premix is stored in a building at the old Mataura paper mill, owned by Southland Storage Ltd, on the banks of the Mataura River.
The premix can produce poisonous ammonia gas if it comes into contact with water.
Environment Court judge Laurie Newhook said parties were strongly engaged in speeding up the process of removal of ouvea premix from the Mataura building.
Under the present agreement, it would be gone by 2022.
In a statement released yesterday, Judge Newhook said new sites had been identified away from Mataura and other residential areas.
Commercial, central government and local government parties were involved in the logistical and contractual details.
‘‘Given the number of parties involved and the complexities of the material and the hoped-for operations, a little time is needed to bring these things together.’’
Mediation began earlier in the month between the Environmental Defence Society and New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS).
The society filed declaration proceedings against NZAS in July.
Interested parties include the Minister for the Environment, the Gore District Council, Southland Storage Ltd and the Southland Regional Council.
Two further conferences have been set down for October 9 and 14.
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"Commercial, central government and local government parties were involved in the logistical and contractual details"
The logistics are actually very simple ... Rio had no problems loading ships with Bauxite in Australia and shipping it to Bluff, they also had no problem transporting the ouvea premix from Bluff to Mataura ...
Reverse that highly complex logistical nightmare and the problem is solved ... just send the toxic ouvea premix back to Australia in a ship that's emptied a load of Bauxite ... it's not bloddy rocket science !!
If this is allowed to continue, then the Clean Green NZ image will replaced by an image of NZ being an easy dumping ground for any other big company that needs to dispose of toxic waste.
If we tried dumping our toxic waste in Australia, there'd be hell to pay. It belongs to Australia ... stick some "return to sender" stickers on the drums it's stored in and send it back at their cost. You should probably send the "local government" that signed the contract as well, did anyone bother to get advise from scientists who would probably have picked up that there would be problems with it in the future ?