Petition a ‘desperate measure’
A day before the hearing of a local bill designed to enable the construction of the proposed Waimea dam, Tasman District Council has received a petition opposing the project.
The organiser of the petition, Jon Pawley, said it was inspired by the lack of consultation on the dam process. He said the petition was a ‘‘desperate measure’’ to get the council to listen.
‘‘There has been a complete lack of meaningful consultation regarding the Waimea dam,’’ he said.
‘‘The consultations that the council have run has been limited to submitters being able to submit on the funding model and the governance model of the project . . . 85 per cent of submitters did not support the proposals.’’
Pawley said that despite this ‘‘overwhelming’’ majority, the dam was put into the council’s Long Term Plan, and since then there had been no opportunity for people to have their say about the proposal.
He said he had purposefully not included reasons for opposing the dam in the petition. ‘‘It simply said, ‘We the the undersigned do not support the proposed Waimea Dam’ . . . we simply want to show to council that there is a large proportion of people who oppose the dam.
‘‘It’s an act of desperation to get council to listen, that people are unhappy with the lack of consultation, the risk that’s being put on to ratepayers, the secrecy, and the flip-flopping that council have been demonstrating the last few months.’’
He said the petition had only been active for a few weeks, mostly in Golden Bay, and had just under 1000 signatures.
The Tasman District Council (Waimea Water Augmentation Scheme) Bill passed its first reading in Parliament on September 19. It was referred to the governance and administration committee, which accepted submissions until midnight on Friday.
The bill seeks to gain an inundation easement over 9.67 hectares of conservation land in Mt Richmond State Forest Park, needed for the reservoir of the proposed dam. It also aims to vest in the council 1.35ha of Crown riverbed in the Lee Valley on which the dam will be built.
The bill was sponsored by Nelson MP Dr Nick Smith, and at its last hearing received the support of National, Labour, NZ First and ACT MPs, while the Greens opposed it, passing with a 112-8 vote. Smith has said he aims to have the bill passed before Christmas.
‘‘People are unhappy with the lack of consultation, the risk that’s being put on to ratepayers, the secrecy, and the flipflopping that council have been demonstrating.’’
Jon Pawley, petition organiser