Not Our Mess..

Not our mess.

It is great to see local National MP Jonathan Young and Nick Smith get stuck in to the debate on Marfell Park chemical clean-up. And for their Governments pleadge to give financial support to assist with the clean-up and ensure that the Marfell dioxin contaminated ex-dump and playground be made safe. But to suggest that ratepayers should help pay towards the clean-up is just ridiculous. Lets not forget that the government were heavily involved in subsidising Dow in the early days to manufacture the chemicals in the first place. So the governments offer of $25.000 and Dow's offer now Dow Agrosciences of $50.000 is just farcical. Dow knew the dangers of their chemicals to humans. Yet still manufactured dioxin based chemicals at their Paritutu New Plymouth plant with NZ Government knowledge for another 10 years after the US Government had stopped its use and manufacturing of it in the USA, because of its known health effects on humans. Dow New Plymouth continued to dump its chemical waste by-products into our municipal dumps landfills and out to sea through our sewers and our waste water systems. So its fair to say the community and the ratepayers of New Plymouth have for decades already paid dearly for this environmental mess many times over with their health and in council repair costs on its chemically damaged sewer and waste water pipes. And are still today paying for the consequences of being exsposed. The New Plymouth community are the victims not the perpetrators. To suggest the community pay more through their rates is a total insult to our community. Who first paid with their taxes in government subsidies to Dow to posion them, and are now asked to pay to clean it up through their rates. At the very least the Nerw Plymouth community deserves a Ministerial government apology, and Dow Agrosciences needs to take ownership of its community responsability and in partnership with the government fully compensate the community for the damage and costs accured from its past chemical manufacturing and known past and present chemical exsposures.

Rusty Kane
New Plymouth
New Zealand