Mark Law

In response to S Searle’s letter (Beacon, August 27) asking if the soil that was removed for the construction of The Hub shopping complex was disposed of and where.

I was the manager of Allied Concrete when the Hub project developed and as our company supplied most of the concrete, acwe were privy to discussions along the way with the project developers.

My recollection was that no contaminants were removed but the whole site was capped with hard fill, asphalt and concrete.

Tests were ongoing from the groundwater that was being pumped into the Whakatāne River by the bridge on the presence of dioxin etc in the wastewater.

Before the development, all rainwater drained through the contaminated soil into the ground water. By "capping" the top, this basically stopped contaminants from being flushed into the groundwater as there was no more soakage from rainfall.

I hope that helps.