Bid to ban toxic spray use gains ground | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

A toxic agri-chemicals advisory forum is to be established in Tauranga to add weight to a new thrust to significantly reduce the use of sprays in the environment.

The council yesterday opted to take a tough stance on spraying agri-chemicals around city streets and reserves after hearing from residents whose lives had been ruined by chemicals.

It will redevelop its toxic agri-chemicals policy to give more weight to the protection of public health _ with the aim of significantly reducing or even eliminating the use of toxic sprays.

The forum will have a pivotal role in advising council on how to achieve this objective. Members will comprise a cross-section of knowledgeable people who were ``free of council bias'.

A break-through for opponents of sprays was when the council agreed to drop the words out of its policy that some use of toxic agri-chemicals was inevitable.

In the meantime, the council will continue to use some chemicals, even though its preference was not to use them.

Yesterday's meeting heard from neuro-educator and former Te Puna Primary School principal Mike Scaddan and Environmental Risk Management Authority scientist Mike Morris.

Mr Scaddan highlighted the correlation between brain damage and mild doses of toxic sprays. He pointed to a study by America's Harvard University that linked the 17 per cent world-wide rise in autism to herbicides and pesticides.

He said central government in New Zealand had its head in the sand over the problem because there was so much damning evidence.

Mr Scaddan said the use of the hormone spray hicane had dramatic effects on Te Puna children around the age of puberty, with dramatic changes of behaviour observed by teachers at the local school.

Council needed to weigh up the inconvenience of stopping the use of sprays with long-term and serious health issues, he said.

He showed startling differences in how sprays affected 5-year-old children's drawing _ comparing incomprehensibly disjointed drawings by children in a Californian valley where sprays were used, with normal drawings by children living in hills above the spray zone.

Mayor Stuart Crosby said there was no disputing that toxic sprays impacted on people's health. The issue was how to manage the problem.

While it was not practical to set a deadline for Tauranga to be spray-free, the council needed to work towards a reduction in the use of toxic sprays in public places and encourage less use on private properties, he said.

Meeting chairman David Stewart said it was too ideological to suggest a spray-free city in the short-term but it was something to work towards.

The council is considering a project to make Berescourt Reserve beside Mount Golf Course the city's first spray-free park.

Cr Hayden Evans said the council had to get its use of sprays down as soon as it could.

Cr Bill Faulkner wanted to know the costs associated with phasing out toxic agri-chemicals. Staff will update spray-free costings set out in council's vegetation strategy.

Cr Mike Baker urged monitoring spray contractors to ensure basic precautions were being followed.

The council decided to proactively seek to reduce the use of toxic agri-chemicals, with annual reviews on progress through the work of the advisory forum.

The new policy says the council should prudently avoid all chemicals in which experts had major reservations about their safety. As recently as last August, the council opposed taking a ``prudent avoidance' approach It agreed to retain some of the more powerful pesticides and herbicides on its schedule ``for the time being' until advice had been received from the forum.