ENVIRONMENT CANTERBURY S WEB-BASED CONTAMINATED LAND INFORMATION TRANSFER SYSTEM Davina McNickel 1, Helen Davies 2, Vincent Salomon 2 1 Environment Canterbury, PO Box 345, Christchurch. Telephone: 03 365 3828, davina.mcnickel@ecan.govt.nz 2 Environment Canterbury, PO Box 345, Christchurch INTRODUCTION Environment Canterbury (ECan) holds a register (the Listed Land Use Register (LLUR), the Register ) of sites that are either contaminated, or have the potential to be contaminated because of past or present land uses. The information in the register has been collected largely in accordance with the guidance in the Ministry for the Environment s draft Classification and Information Management Protocols (MfE 2004). ECan has recently developed a web-based search system that provides a mechanism for territorial authority (TA) staff to access the Register. This paper introduces the statutory reasons for developing such a system, its requirements, development, components, a review of its functionality and an overview of future developments following one year of use. THE LEGAL REASONS FOR LOCAL AUTHORITIES TO COLLECT CONTAMINATED LAND INFORMATION Resource Management Act The Resource Management Act (RMA) (RMA 1991), was amended in August 2005. Several of the amendments relate specifically to contaminated land. It is now stated that territorial authorities must consider whether land might be contaminated when considering the development, subdivision or use of contaminated land (s31(1)(b) RMA 1991). Additionally, every regional council has the following function for the purpose of giving effect to the Act in its region: The investigation of land for the purposes of identifying and monitoring contaminated land (s30 (1) RMA 1991). These amendments, when combined with the existing requirement of section 35 (1) of the Act to gather information 1 indicate that both regional councils and territorial authorities need to record information about contaminated land in order to conduct their functions. 1 According to this section of the Act, every local authority shall gather such information, and undertake or commission such research, as is necessary to carry out effectively its functions under this Act (s35(1) RMA 1991) 1 of 10
Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) As well as the statutory functions related to contaminated land in the RMA, under LGOIMA, TAs require a method to collect and store information they hold about the likely presence of hazardous contaminants. It is mandatory for this information to be disclosed on land information memoranda (s44a(2)(a) LGOIMA 1987). ECan is also obliged to release official information on contaminated land to those requesting it, unless it has good reasons for withholding it (s5 LGOIMA 1987). The proposed Natural Resources Regional Plan To meet the legislation detailed above, Chapter 4 of ECan s proposed Canterbury Natural Resources Regional Plan (pnrrp) includes a method to develop, in consultation with territorial local authorities, protocols for the collection and exchange of information about contaminated land (ECan 2004, p76). A regional register of sites for all local authority staff to use In accordance with its statutory functions, ECan aims to identify and monitor contaminated land efficiently and systematically, bearing in mind the sensitivity of the information. As such, protocols relating to information collection and release have been produced in the Contaminated Site Information Management Strategy (ECan 1999). Using this strategy, the Register has been developed, and is used to store and release information that ECan holds about the contamination status of land parcels. The Contaminated Site Information Management Strategy (ECan 1999) specifies the functions of the Register as follows: to manage and release contaminated site information in a clear and consistent manner; to ensure that the information is made available to appropriate parties involved in decision-making and management of sites; to ensure the information is correct and appropriately released so that any person affected by the availability of the information, in particular any site owner, is not unreasonably or unnecessarily affected by its release. Given the statutory provisions, contaminated land information must be appropriately stored and released by all local authorities. For approximately eight years, ECan has been collecting information about sites that have used, stored or disposed of hazardous substances. The sharing of information is considered to be an effective method for all local authorities in Canterbury to achieve the most effective outcomes in relation to their statutory functions in this work area. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM ECan consulted with all TAs in the region prior to developing a system that would meet the requirements of the legislation, and the needs of the TAs. A web-based information transfer system was developed to allow TA staff immediate access to current information held in the Register for inclusion in Land Information Memoranda (LIMs), Project Information Memoranda (PIMs) and for contaminated land management functions. Because TAs often hold important contaminated land information that ECan does not have, the system was also 2 of 10
designed to encourage information provision by TAs to ECan, in order to maintain accurate and up to date contaminated site information while minimising duplication of effort in the collection and verification of this information. SYSTEM COMPONENTS The principles considered when developing the system were that it needed to be quick and easy to use, and would provide the user with sufficient easy-to-understand and accurate information to allow them to make decisions based on it. Initially, there was insufficient information to provide the search interface in a GIS format, and so a search system based on valuation numbers was developed, as most TAs use valuation numbers as their primary search identifier when producing LIMS and PIMS. The search system is accessed via a secure internet connection, with password and username details required to gain access and used to record statistics about usage. The main page of the search system is shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Listed Land Use Register search system - Main page The user simply enters the desired valuation number and clicks on search. The system connects directly to the Register, searching for a match of that valuation number, and the results of the search are displayed. If a valuation number is entered that matches an entry in the Register, the system will present a range of printable documents as shown in Figure 2. 3 of 10
Figure 2. Outputs produced by a search Search Results page In some cases there may be more than one entry in the Register for the same valuation number. This situation would occur when a larger registered site is subdivided, and each daughter site is given its own register entry. It is important that information relevant to both the daughter sites as well as the parent site prior to subdivision, is available as a result of the search. In this situation, the system will present a list of all sites on the Register with that valuation number, and the user can then select the desired land parcel. The statement is produced from summarised site information contained within the site record on the Register. Details of investigative reports are listed and summarised, and the site s current classification 2 is shown, along with Hazardous Activities and Industries List (HAIL) activities associated with the site, and dates of use. An example of a statement is included in Appendix 1. A cover letter outlines the information that is included in each of the documents. A copy of the HAIL, and an information sheet which explains the function of the LLUR and defines the categories used, are also presented as downloadable documents on the results page. An additional function of the web-based search system is the Notify function. This function allows information about properties that should be on the register because they have used, stored or disposed of hazardous substances, i.e. they have been used for an activity listed on the HAIL, to be submitted to a Contaminated Sites Officer via an online form, as shown in Figure 3. 2 The classification system used by ECan is similar to that proposed by the Ministry for the Environment in their Classification and Information Management Protocols guideline (MfE 2004). The classification system provides a method of grouping sites according to the contamination known to exist at the site, or to the land use activities associated with the site. 4 of 10
Figure 3. The search system s notify function This function allows a TA officer to provide further details on a site that is already registered, and information about sites that should be added to the Register. REVIEW AND IMPROVEMENTS Since its launch in 2004, ECan has conducted one internal review, and one external audit to determine the extent of use of the system by TA staff, and identify any functional issues associated with its use, and possibilities for improvement. The internal review documented problems the TAs had encountered and how these were remedied by ECan, as well as identifying areas of improvement that could most effectively enhance the benefits of the system. For the external audit, an external party was contracted to conduct telephone interviews with TA staff to determine their views on whether the system met their needs, and whether it has adequately fulfilled the function it was designed for. The telephone interviews found that 7 of the 11 TAs in the region are regularly using the system for their LIM and PIM searches, and for planning purposes. Most felt the system provided accurate data, although the number of documents that needed to be downloaded was in some cases considered excessive and resulted in a LIM report that was too large. Overall, TAs feel that this search system satisfies the requirements of LGOIMA and the RMA, although the Crown Law legal opinion produced in December 2004 (Crown Law 2004) on release of information about former horticultural land use on LIMs did cause one TA to temporarily cease its use of the system. 5 of 10
A contaminated sites officer at the Greater Wellington Regional Council was provided with access to the system and the results of the telephone interview, and conducted an audit of the system. This audit identified areas where the system could be improved, which include: further explanation about parent and daughter sites and how these results are displayed; merge the cover letter, HAIL list and information sheet into one downloadable document; modify the information presented in the statement so that it is more relevant to a public enquiry and does not include anecdotal information; add required fields to the notify form; upgrade to a GIS based system. The recommendations made in this audit will be considered, and appropriate changes made in order to maintain a system that both meets the needs of the TAs, while fulfilling ECan s legal obligations regarding information management, transfer and release. As the search system relies on valuation number input, and valuation numbers are unique to a district, usage data can be calculated and monitored on a district by district basis. A review of this data revealed that the frequency of use by TAs has been somewhat arbitrary, and the TAs using the system most often are not the districts for which the most site information is available on the Register. Similarly the TA using the system least often, is not in the district with the least amount of sites on the Register. It was therefore apparent that the likelihood of there being information available on a site was not relevant to how often TAs might use the system. Based on the results of telephone interviews conducted, it seems that there is no particular reason for the difference in usage. UPGRADE TO GIS-BASED SEARCH SYSTEM What is clear from both the internal review and external audit is that the system is limited by its reliance on valuation number and legal description as the primary site references. These details are vulnerable to change over time, particularly as a result of subdivision, and can therefore become out of date, meaning that a search using new details would return no results. Furthermore, if the legal description changes, the extent of an original site can become unknown based on current land information. The web-based search system is therefore only capable of finding site information on a land parcel for which the valuation number entered in the Register is still current. With almost 3,000 sites on the Register, it would be a huge undertaking to regularly check that all land parcel information is current. In order to prevent this problem, a GIS based search system has been developed which uses spatial data to identify sites. The new GIS based system will enable a user to search for a property using legal description or valuation number, or simply by zooming in on the map field. The selected property is then buffered, and all sites contained on the Register and located within that buffer zone are captured and labelled on screen. This means that a TA officer can also select information about neighbouring land parcels that may have an effect on the property in question. This was a function that TAs saw as beneficial to them and of importance to people receiving property information in LIMS and PIMS, particularly with regard to offsite migration of contaminants. 6 of 10
Developing the GIS-based system involved the creation and verification of polygon data (shapes) for all sites on the Register. In most cases this was done electronically by running a match of land parcel information on the Register against current Valuation New Zealand data. When a match could be made, a shape of the land parcel or parcels associated with a site was created, and the site attributes added. Where there were discrepancies between the two sets of data, shape files were created manually. The creation of shapes enables the full extent of a site or the exact location of point source contamination on a site to be identified spatially. For example, it is not necessary for an entire land parcel to be flagged as being associated with a storage tank, if the land parcel is large and it is known where on the site that storage tank is located. The creation of these discrete shape files has been received favourably, in particular by owners of large land parcels with specific areas of potential contamination, e.g. farm owners with a sheep dip located on the property. The creation of polygon data has been incorporated into the Contaminated Land Team s procedure for registering new sites on the Register. THE FUTURE The new GIS-based search system will be provided to all TAs in Canterbury following completion of a successful one month trial by ECan s customer services staff. ECan will continue to work closely with TAs in the region to implement the recommendations made in MfE s information management protocols (MfE 2004), when it is finalised, in order to be nationally consistent. ECan has a long term aim to have identified all sites with past or present activities listed on the HAIL within ten years of the pnrrp becoming operative ( ECan 2004). ECan intends to build upon the provision of this web-link to encourage regular interaction with TAs, with the aim of developing a mutually beneficial approach to contaminated land management, where information transfer between local and regional council occurs regularly. 7 of 10
APPENDIX. STATEMENT FROM ENVIRONMENT CANTERBURY S LISTED LAND USE REGISTER 8 of 10
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Environment Canterbury gratefully acknowledges the in-kind assistance from Greater Wellington Regional Council (Bruce Croucher) with the audit of the search system. REFERENCES Crown Law (2004) Potential Contamination by Horticultural Soils. Legal opinion produced by Bronwyn Arthur, Crown Counsel on 17 December 2004, Reference ENV006/156. Crown Law Office, Wellington. Environment Canterbury (ECan) (1999) Contaminated Site Information Management Strategy. Report U99/74. Environment Canterbury, Christchurch. Environment Canterbury (ECan) (2004) Variation 1. Proposed Natural Resources Regional Plan. Chapter 4: Water Quality. Report No. R04/15/4/ ISBN 1-86937-530-0. Environment Canterbury, Christchurch. Ministry for the Environment (MfE) (2004) Draft Classification and Information Management Protocols. ME number 520. Ministry for the Environment, Wellington. 10 of 10