We don't want toxic city say residents

5th November 2008

Bay residents, including the mother of a teen left totally debilitated by toxic sprays, have urged Tauranga City Council to rethink the city's increasing dependence on chemical weed control.

Councillors this week heard Avenues resident Robyn Board describe the impact that agri-chemicals had had on her 18-year-old son Michael.

She was one of seven speakers opposed to council's draft agri-chemical policy, which said use of some toxic agri-chemicals was necessary to help control weeds.

Mrs Board's son collapsed five years ago after the family's rural neighbour sprayed a mixture of Roundup and the hormone-based Gardoprim in high winds.

The Board family left their home that day, never to return.

``He is still virtually housebound because he is too debilitated to go out and be a regular 18-year-old,' Mrs Board said.

Mrs Board, who herself had been diagnosed with multiple chemical sensitivity and ME (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome) precipitated by chemical poisoning, said the sprays had a profound effect on her son.

They affected his endocrine, immune and central nervous systems.

She spent three years ferrying Michael to school at Tauranga Boys' College and often waited in the car in case he needed to leave quickly.

Most times, she worked with him from home.

``He now has bronchial asthma and heart problems as a result of the sprays.'

Mrs Board said her son's story illustrated how Tauranga people were already struggling under a toxic load _ without council adding to the burden.

``We seem to have developed a culture of spraying anything and everything ... without regard to public safety,' she said.

The family lived near the 17th Ave cemetery, and Mrs Broad said they were still recovering from recent spraying which could have been controlled with a weed-eater.

Mrs Board asked council to honour its 1992 spray-free policy that came out of a referendum rejecting toxic sprays. ``Our city is called $10 Tauranga. I think it would be more realistic to call it toxic Tauranga,' she said.

Arataki resident Sonya Palmer claimed a council spray contractor had sprayed the herbicide Versatill in windy conditions on September 17 when children were walking through a nearby park.

She took photographs that refuted the contractor's advice to council staff that children were not present during the spraying.

Spraywatchers member Joan Duncan, of Papamoa, said headaches, nausea, exhaustion and a neurological disease made her ``non-functional' when chemicals were sprayed around the city.

``Toxic agri-chemicals interfere with hormone, neurological and immune systems,' she said.

People who thought they were not suffering any ill-effects were experiencing cell damage that could develop into cancer or other chronic diseases, she said.

Papamoa's Brigid Meagher said most, if not all, the 22 chemicals used by council were banned in some countries.

The council reserved its decision on the policy until November 17. It received 56 submissions.