Upset residents send company a wish list
Taupō residents fed up with disruptions caused by the building of nearby geothermal power stations have sent Contact Energy a list of demands, however the company says it’s doing everything it can to lessen the impact on its closest neighbours.
Gus McHardy, the de facto spokesperson for unhappy Centennial Dr residents, said they had put up with the construction of Contact’s Te Huka and Tauhara power stations for about seven years and wanted the company to agree to a list of demands he believed it should be able to afford and would address their concerns.
Contact Energy is expanding its Tauhara geothermal network, but residents’ issues came to a head in late May when Contact started testing geothermal wells in the semi-rural area.
As part of the commissioning process Contact had been conducting one-off, five to seven-day well flow tests.
The tests ran day and night for almost a week and locals said the noise was so bad it shook their houses constantly, leading to sleepless nights, and claims of property damage from steam plumes carrying geothermal minerals.
McHardy described the wells as ‘‘gateways to hell’’, and at a recent meeting residents came up with a list of demands they said the company should consider as remediation.
‘‘We all agree after voicing our concerns that the damages to our homes, roofs, vehicles, water, animals, and our health and wellbeing holistically need to be taken into consideration,’’ he said.
Residents asked Contact to – replace all of their roofs, replace their windows with sound cancelling double glazing, clean their houses and out-buildings, have their vehicles valeted, extend an offer of free electricity indefinitely, pay for independent testing of the area’s water quality, compensate owners for any loss of value for their properties – or buy them outright, regularly test for subsidence and have the Waikato Regional Council monitor all venting and aerial discharge.
In response, Contact Energy’s geothermal resources and development general manager Mike Dunstall said the company was complying with all of its resource consent conditions and were well aware of their concerns.
‘‘We are committed to reducing this impact where we can for our neighbours.’’
However, Dunstall said Contact would not replace any roofs, and double glazing was ‘‘very unlikely to stop all noise from testing or construction, which are intermittent activities with higher noise limits’’.
‘‘Any double glazing we commit to fitting would be as a mitigation to permanent plant noise such as from fans or steam lines’’, Dunstall said, and would be considered on a caseby-case basis, as would any request to have vehicles valeted.
Dunstall said residents had been offered free electricity while the stations were under construction ‘‘as a gesture to say thanks for bearing with us during the construction period, as this is when most disturbance will occur.’’
He said recent well testing produced steam plumes that travelled over some homes, but testing confirmed that no geothermal minerals were present.
‘‘This means there is no likelihood of damage to your home.
‘‘We recognise the test did cause disruption to you, and in recognition of the disruption rather than any geothermal minerals being present, we are happy to cover the cost of water blasting your house and cleaning your windows on this occasion.’’
He said water and subsidence monitoring were standard practice and were part of Contact’s resource consent conditions.
With regard to property values, Dunstall said Contact could not cover any perceived loss of value but were committed to ‘‘rectify any damage we cause’’ that was attributable to Contact’s activity.
‘‘Buying property near our Te Huka and Tauhara power stations is not part of our current property strategy.
‘‘This is dependent on specific circumstances and will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.’’