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Trust Thomas Consultants For All Contaminated Soil Sampling & Remediation Services

Tuesday 24 April 2018, 7:11PM

By Beckie Wright

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Thomas Consultants is a New Zealand owned multidisciplinary consultancy based in Auckland and Tauranga, with a reputation with property owners, developers, community-based organisations and local government for being approachable, dependable and professional project-partners. They are aware of the need for suitably qualified and experienced practitioners, as there are only a

limited number of them in the country. Every company that completes soil investigation reports must use an SQEP, and councils around the country need assistance from these qualified professionals to complete their peer reviews. This is where Thomas Consultants can help everyone out, particularly in their contaminated soil sampling and remediation services.

When the Resource Management (National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil to Protect Human Health) Regulations 2011, otherwise known as “the NES”, came into force on 1 January 2012, it created a requirement that various reports be certified by a “suitably qualified experienced practitioner” or SQEP. Unfortunately, the NES did not define exactly what constitutes a SQEP.

The NES Users’ Guide, published in April 2012, provides some guidance regarding the necessary qualification for a SQEP certifying a report. These include holding a position as “a senior or principal scientist/engineer with a relevant tertiary education and with at least 10 years of related experience.” In practice, this lack of regulatory certainty regarding who does or does not qualify as a SQEP has allowed almost anyone to claim SQEP status, regardless of how much experience they have in contaminated land investigation.Further complicating the issue is the fact that District and Regional Councils have generally been unwilling to challenge all but the most obviously inappropriate claims. The inability or unwillingness of Councils to rigorously evaluate the SQEP status of those who certify reports included in resource consent applications that come before them for review, has had a number of unfortunate consequences.

Failure to identify unqualified SQEPs can result in the acceptance of inadequate reports, potentially resulting in the issuance of resource consents based on incomplete or inaccurate information. Poor consenting decisions based on insufficient information not only represent a significant potential source of liability to Councils but can also put residents at risk.

For more information on environmental consultants, soil investigation NZ and civil engineering companies please go to http://www.thomasconsultants.co.nz .