On June 29th 2017, Standards NZ released the new guidelines for testing and decontamination of meth homes. The guidelines include:
Providing 2 levels to distinguish high-use and limited-use areas.
By defining areas and setting a separate level for each will cut down time and money when it comes to remediation of these areas.
A high-use area is defined as: In summary, these means all the major rooms in a home and on the occasion garages (though this can be applied on a case by case basis).
A limited-use area is defined as: This would be applied to ceiling cavities, attics, under house areas.
Changing the threshold from 3 levels to just 1 in high-use areas.
Previously, guidelines stated that 0.5ug/100cm2 would be used in the case of clan labs, 1.5ug/100cm2 for smoking in properties with full or part carpet and 2.0ug/100cm2 for smoking in properties with no carpet.
The level set in June is now 1.5ug/100cm2 in all instances. Reasons given for this include[iii]:
“It is currently not possible to determine whether or not a property has been used as a clandestine laboratory, based solely on the results of scientific sampling;”
“What constitutes evidence of a clandestine laboratory may change as production techniques change;”
The guideline set for limited-use areas is 3.8ug/100cm2. This level is “based on the Colorado Regulations for clean-up and the ESR 2016 review, which calculated an adult maximum exposure level”[iv].
Clear steps forward for screening and detailed assessments.
This section states that where a screening is undertaken and a negative result returned, a clearance report shall be issued. Where a screening returns a positive result, a detailed assessment SHALL be undertaken and a report issued stating that. “ Plainly, if any screening result comes back over the guideline threshold, a detailed assessment is LEGALLY required.