Open-cast coal mine plan to be appealed

A conservation group is going to court to stop an open-cast coal mine being build on public reserve land on the West Coast.

Stevenson Mining was granted resource consent by the West Coast Regional Council and Buller District Council to operate the mine on November 21.

Environmentalists and supporters are divided over the project, which is seen by some in the region as a means of offsetting the significant job losses of the past few years.

Lobby group Forest & Bird is now appealing the decision to the Environment Court on the grounds ‘‘this place is too special to be dug up for a coal mine’’.

The approximately 144 hectare mine footprint encompasses the ridge on Mt Te Kuha, around 12 kilometres south of Westport.

It is home to a number of threatened and at-risk bird species, including the great spotted kiwi and New Zealand falcon, as well as the largest population of the rare forest ringlet butterfly.

All the expert ecological witnesses that appeared before the resource consent hearing described the vegetation in the area as significant.

It is also considered to be one of the least modified examples of coal measures vegetation, made up of plants that occur near coal-deposits, in the area.

‘‘We are appealing to prevent open cast coal mining from removing these very special plants and animals, and destroying an important landscape,’’ Forest & Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said.

‘‘This mining industry claims the economic benefits outweigh the environmental costs, but in fact these benefits are overstated and the costs much higher than expected.’’

In its application, Stevenson Mining said it expected to extract 4 million tonnes of high-quality coal over 16 years.

The mine would create 58 jobs, plus additional employment opportunities in the Buller District, which would see increased expenditure of $16 million a year, an economic assessment said.

The commissioners who granted resource consent to the mine said there would be adverse effects, but these could be tempered through mitigation and other efforts.

There had been more than 1000 redundancies over the past four years in the Buller District, and the mine would ‘‘help to potentially offset some of those losses’’.

Buller Mayor Garry Howard said the redundancies across the coal, gold mining and cement manufacturing industries had been a ‘‘big hit’’ for a district of around 10,000 people. ‘‘We’re trying to transition from mining, but there is still place for mining and I think the resource consent was fair and reasonable and had set conditions,’’ he said.

Howard said the mine was ‘‘very, very important’’ to the West Coast community, and having it in New Zealand meant stringent environmental standards could be imposed. ‘‘My personal view is there is an issue where New Zealand is saying ‘no more mining’ and yet it continues to want to use steel – the two things go hand in hand.’’

Hague, a West Coast resident, said the future of the area would be determined by economic activities, like tourism, that protected or helped restored the environment. ‘‘People don’t come to see mines, they come to see intact forests and wonderful landscapes. Things they can’t see anywhere else.’’

He said he was sick of the ‘‘selfserving’’ arguments made by mining companies, and said the jobs they created were short-term and subject to the whims of international coal prices.

The mine would result in ‘‘permanent, forever destruction’’ of the ecological characteristic of the area, which Hague said ‘‘everyone’’ agreed was of high value.

Approximately 12ha of the mine footprint is on conservation estate under the stewardship of the Department of Conservation.

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage along with Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods are yet to make a decision on whether an access agreement will be granted.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said last month there would be ‘‘no new mines on conservation land’’. However, Sage clarified the policy when she said it related to new mines not existing applications.

She would not comment yesterday, saying it was inappropriate to do so before she had made any decision around access.

Around 100 hectares of the mine footprint would be on the Westport Water Conservation Reserve, land managed by the Buller District Council under the Reserves Act.

The council originally agreed to an access agreement, which it later retracted after Forest & Bird filed a judicial review challenging the decision on the basis the council had neglected their obligations under the Reserves Act.

This led Stevenson Mining to seek a declaration in the High Court that the Crown Minerals Act prevailed over the Reserves Act in decisions about reserve land. A decision is expected soon.