Clean air milestone - Canterbury Air Plan endorsed

Environment Canterbury today unanimously adopted its Air Plan commissioners’ recommendations which cover chapter three (air quality) of the Canterbury Natural Resources Regional Plan.

The recommendations deal specifically with Christchurch’s air and also cover a raft of other rules around rural burning and disposal of agrichemical containers and plastic sileage wrap region-wide.

Sir Kerry said the recommendations endorsed the Air Plan and it was a milestone for clean air in Canterbury and Christchurch.

“Christchurch people and clean air campaigners should be congratulated for the action taken so far which has seen us more than halve the number of high pollution days this past winter to just 13 as conversions to insulation and clean heating accelerate.

“Anyone with respiratory issues, families with young children and older people can only benefit from this tangible improvement in city air quality. Help is available to all households reliant on open fires or older style burners – with or without a community services card, and to landlords, through ECan’s Clean Heat Project to improve household heating and in doing so, neighbourhood air quality.

More than 10,000 Clean Heat Project conversions have now been made, with many other households taking voluntary steps to insulate, install heat pumps and low pollution burners and pellet fires themselves,” Sir Kerry said.

Based on the recommendations, key council decisions are:

• Open fires will be banned for use in Christchurch as soon as the plan is operative. ECan will be encouraging all households reliant upon open fires to make use of the Clean Heat Project.

• In Christchurch, woodburners and solid fuel burners 15 years old and over will have to be replaced with less polluting heaters, pellet fires or clean forms of heating from January 1, 2008 at the earliest. The need for additional restrictions upon the use or replacement of domestic woodburners to achieve the national air quality standards by 2013, in places like Christchurch, will be investigated further and reported back to council.

• Region-wide, treated timber and waste oil will have to be burnt in large-scale, purpose-built, high temperature furnaces. This will mainly affect industries which burn these waste products and is a new rule.

• No more burning of polyethelene agricultural wraps and agricultural and animal remedy containers, without resource consent to do so. A number of council and government initiatives have been developed to make the shift from on-farm burning to disposal at collection points a practical option. See www.agrecovery.co.nz  and for bale wrap disposal alternatives – www.agpac.co.nz  ECan staff will also be reporting back to the new council on ways these rules will be made practical region-wide.

ECan aims to be publicly notify the plan on Saturday, September 29 with each submitter posted a CD of the recommendations and decisions. CD copies of the report will also be available at all public libraries and CD copies and paper copies will be available at ECan offices in Christchurch, Timaru and Kaikoura. At that point it will be subject to appeals to the Environment Court. Potentially, it could be operative in a year.

The commissioners recommended that ECan should consider a number of variations (new rules relating to particular situations) to the air plan. Staff will investigate these issues further and report back to the new council. A key consideration will be whether additional steps will be required in places like Christchurch to achieve the National Environmental Standards for air quality by 2013.

Depending on appeals, the plan could be operative in a year, Sir Kerry said. “Variations will be required to include the new recommendations if these are agreed to by council and also to include rules for places like Rangiora, Kaiapoi, Ashburton and Timaru. In turn, these will require more public consultation and submissions.”