Ironsand miner confident
The company wanting to mine ironsand off the South Taranaki coast is confident an appeal to the Supreme Court will enable the project to start after a threeyear delay.
In April, the Court of Appeal (CoA) found that marine discharge consents granted by the Environmental Protection Agency to Trans Tasman Resources (TTR) in 2017 did not follow the legally correct approach on six points of law under the Exclusive Economic Zone Act.
TTR is seeking leave to appeal that decision.
The mining site would be centred between 22km and 36km offshore to extract 50 million tonnes a year of vanadium-rich titomagnetic ironsand using an underwater crawler to pump the sediment to a floating vessel above.
The company estimates around 90 per cent of the sediment would be returned to the sea floor.
Final submissions supporting the company’s appeal application are due tomorrow, for the Supreme Court to consider whether to grant leave to hear the case or decline it.
TTR executive chairman Alan Eggers said the company was confident the appeal hearing, which is opposed by environmental, conservation and fishing groups and iwi, would go ahead.
‘‘The basis for TTR’s appeal to the Supreme Court is that the EPA did follow the legally correct approach in granting TTR’s environmental consents in 2017 and is now seeking to have the six points of law upheld in the CoA judgment reversed,’’ he said.
‘‘There are no harmful substances produced by our mineral recovery operation with the same sediment returned to the ocean floor with no media, chemicals or reagents added.’’
If the company is successful with its appeal the next step would be to complete a bankable feasibility study to fund the project, build the infrastructure and
commission the ironsand recovery operation, he said.
The feasibility study is signed off independently and cannot be finalised before any environmental consents are confirmed or challenged, he said.
If the Supreme Court hearing did not go ahead the company would need to reapply for new environmental consents or wait until the EEZ Act was amended.
Eggers said TTR could not look for another site to mine ironsand as it had already spent considerable time and money to locate the titanomagnetite on the North Island’s west coast, along with marine and environmental research to gain a mining licence and be granted environmental consents.
TTR contend the project area to be mined at any one time was less than the area of a rugby field and would not resemble an open cast mine.
Opposing groups were wrong to describe it as a recreational playground because it was too far out for diving, fishing or swimming, it said.
Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM) chairwoman Cindy Baxter said the Appeal Court handed down an ‘‘incredibly strong decision in favour of groups opposing the project’’.
‘‘The court ruled the protections spelt out in the EEZ Act is an environmental bottom line, and if there is a real prospect of material pollution of the environment a marine discharge or dumping consent should not be granted.’’
KASM and others opposing the project intend to fight the case ‘‘every step of the way’’, she said.