Contaminated land and HAIL

HAIL — the Hazardous Activities and Industries List — is a Ministry for the Environment list of land uses known to be associated with soil contamination; a site with a current or historical HAIL activity may require investigation before it can be subdivided, have its use changed, or have its soil disturbed.

What triggers an investigation

The National Environmental Standard for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil to Protect Human Health (the NES for Contaminated Soil) requires a council to consider soil contamination before consenting certain activities on a HAIL site — most commonly a subdivision, a change of land use (for example rural to residential), or any soil disturbance such as earthworks or removing a fuel tank. If the site is on the HAIL and one of those triggers applies, a preliminary site investigation is generally required before consent can be granted.

Where it commonly turns up

Former orchards and market gardens (historical pesticide and herbicide use), service stations and vehicle workshops (fuel and solvent contamination), sheep dip sites, dry cleaners, timber treatment sites, and landfill or cleanfill sites. Many of these are not obvious from looking at the property today — the orchard may have been residential for forty years.

What an investigation involves

A preliminary site investigation (desktop review of the site's history, sometimes followed by soil sampling) establishes whether contamination is present and at what level. Where it is, a detailed site investigation and a remediation or management plan may be required before the council will issue consent. Costs and timeframes vary widely depending on what's found.

Common misunderstanding

Being on the HAIL does not mean a site is contaminated — it means the land use history is one where contamination is common enough to require checking. Equally, a clean-looking, long-residential property can still trigger the NES if its history includes an old orchard boundary or a filled-in fuel tank nobody remembers. First Pass checks HAIL status as part of its due diligence pass precisely because this is easy to miss from a listing.

Related terms

Sources

• Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Assessing and Managing Contaminants in Soil to Protect Human Health) Regulations 2011; Ministry for the Environment — HAIL

Last reviewed: 1 August 2026 · General information only, not legal advice.

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