S Taranaki council opposes mining plan
CATHERINE GROENESTEIN
The South Taranaki District Council has kicked its previous neutrality to the kerb and is now slamming a plan to mine the seabed off its coast as ‘‘environmental vandalism’’.
In a strongly worded draft submission to an inquiry by Parliament’s Environment Committee into the mining proposal by Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR), the council says it would bring minimal economic benefits to region or the country in comparison to what the company hoped to gain.
In coming out strongly against the proposal, the council, which has remained neutral throughout a long-running campaign by Trans-Tasman Resources to gain consent for its plan, has joined a flood of opposition to the idea.
This includes a petition signed by 35,000 New Zealanders calling for a complete ban, that was presented to Parliament in June last year.
Despite that petition, legislation launched by Te Pati Mā ori in May that would have banned seabed mining altogether, was voted down at first reading by Labour, National and Act.
The draft submission from the South Taranaki District Council said the response to the idea had been clear at all levels.
‘‘...including individuals, iwi and hapū , environmental groups, fishing companies, district and regional councils, the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, that seabed mining is not wanted,’’ the submission, signed by South Taranaki mayor Phil Nixon, said.
Members of the council’s Te Kāhui Matauraura (formerly the iwi liaison committee) welcomed the draft submission at their meeting in Hā wera on Wednesday last week, and it was also being circulated to councillors, for their input.
‘‘We are convinced that the environmental damage to the seabed itself and to some of the most threatened and rare species in the world, as well as the potential cultural damage created by adverse effects on the food baskets of three iwi and many recreational fishers, mean that seabed mining must not go ahead in the South Taranaki Bight or anywhere else in New Zealand’s economic exclusion zone,’’ the draft submission said.
The proposed mining technique was experimental and unproven, ‘‘but it is clear there will be significant detrimental effects’’.
‘‘TTR’s persistence suggests that the financial returns from its proposal (to mainly overseas investors) would be considerable,’’ it said.
‘‘The economic benefits to the South Taranaki District and New Zealand would be minimal in comparison.’’
The inquiry is the latest round of a decade-long campaign by TTR to win the required consents to suck up to 50 million tonnes of sand each year, extract the iron ore, then put 44 million tonnes back onto the seabed.
It had some success gaining consent in 2016, however, that was overturned by the High Court in 2018 following appeals from parties such as Te Rū nanga o
Ngā ti Ruanui and Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal.
The Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal’s decision, and the application was sent back to the Environmental Protection Authority for reconsideration in 2021.
Trans-Tasman Resources confirmed it did want the Authority to reconsider the application in 2022, leading to the appointment of the new decision-making committee.
The council’s draft submission said TTR’s proposed mining area was a feeding ground for blue whales, blue penguins and critically endangered Mā ui dolphins, and the Cawthron Institute, in a report for the Taranaki Regional Council, had found at least five threatened species there.
The submission pointed out this contradicted TTR’s assertion, quoted in the Taranaki Daily News on September 2016, that’ ‘the project area is actually a large featureless area of naturally shifting sands and sediments, colonised by hardy species of common forms of marine life of no unique or special ecological significance’’, it said.
‘‘Even if that were true, it is not an excuse for environmental vandalism, especially when sediment plume from ‘‘waste’’ sand being returned to the sea floor is likely to have effects outside the mining area, including the reefs inshore from the proposed mining area.’’
Similar diverging opinions were likely to arise with any similar mining proposal in the country’s exclusive economic zone, and the lack of agreement and certainty around effects must surely be enough to ensure that seabed mining does not proceed, it said.
The inquiry deadline for submissions is June 23.