Probes into the environmental and economic impacts of a proposed seabed mine off the South Taranaki coast have been ordered by authorities assessing the miner’s fast-track bid.
The Fast-track agency says its decision-making panel will likely be ready to work from mid-July – a new peak in the decade-and-a-half fight over the seabed of the South Taranaki Bight.
Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) has a 35-year licence to mine the seabed off Pātea but needs marine discharge consents to pump 45 million tonnes of unwanted sediment a year into the ocean.
After the Supreme Court refused permission, the Australian miner withdrew from a court-ordered environmental hearing to apply instead via the Fast-track Approvals Act (FAA).
The Fast-track panel’s convener has now asked the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to advise how the panel should weigh up different laws covering marine consents, considering previous court judgements.
The panel convener also directed EPA experts to check Trans-Tasman’s evidence and advise whether they’d grant the consents.
Meanwhile Taranaki Regional Council is buying-in expertise to appraise TTR’s economic projections.
Fast-track rules say the panel must give greatest weight to the new Act’s purpose: to facilitate developments with ‘significant regional or national benefits’.
But panellists must also take into account the purpose of the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act – the EZZ Act.
The EEZ Act’s purpose is to ‘promote sustainable management of natural resources’ and specifically to protect against pollution by ‘the discharge of harmful substances and the dumping… of waste’.
Waste sediment is a recognised pollutant.
The conveners have directed the EPA’s to get its EEZ experts to advise:
- how to weigh the Fast-track Act’s economic focus against the EEZ Act’s environmental protections, ‘having regard to previous senior court decisions’;
- whether they disagree with TTRs expert technical reports, or want to add to them;
- whether or not they would grant the marine consents and why;
- any changes to consent conditions if granted.
Trans-Tasman has said opposition to the mine lack scientific credibility and that its sediment waste will be insignificant in the turbid Tasman Sea.
The miner failed repeatedly to gain marine discharge consents through the environmentally-focused EEZ Act but under the FAA the weighting has shifted in favour of economic benefit.
TTR promises an economic boost for Taranaki and Whanganui, creating over 1350 New Zealand jobs and becoming one of the country’s top exporters.
The company will present its case to New Plymouth District Council (NPDC) on Wednesday morning.
Taranaki Regional Council’s powerful Policy and Planning committee discussed the fast-track bid last week.
NPDC’s representative on the committee, councillor Bali Haque, said the Fast-track law meant TRC ought to shift focus and “have a really good look at that economic case, both regionally and nationally.”
“It’s always focused on the environmental stuff. Where is the economic, really good, robust analysis, and to what extent should TRC be putting a little more focus on that?”
The council’s strategy lead Finbar Kiddle agreed the FAA made economic considerations crucial.
“We don’t have much in the way of economic expertise in-house, but we are in the process of contracting someone to provide a really strong assessment of that modelling... that [TTR] included in their application.”
“We’re not going to be going out there and running our own modelling, it’s a review of the model that’s been provided.
Kiddle said TRC had three probable inputs in the determining the fate of Trans-Tasman’s Fast-track application:
- Help choose one of the four panel members
- Comment on the application and speak if the panel holds a hearing
- Comment on consent conditions
He said the council was talking with iwi of South Taranaki about the panel member selection.
South Taranaki hapū want the Waitangi Tribunal to halt a fast-track bid to mine the seabed off Pātea.
Hapū and iwi are seeking a tribunal injunction to block processing of TTR’s fast-track application.
“If seabed mining goes ahead, we lose more than biodiversity - we lose the mauri that binds us as Taranaki Mā Tongatonga [people of south Taranaki],” Lead claimant Puawai Hudson of Ngāruahine hapū Ngāti Tū said.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
