Waste-to-energy plan fuels battle

Petition launched as opposition to a plant in Kaipara grows

Community opposition to a proposed $730 million waste-to-energy plant in Northland is growing. Kaipara Mayor Craig Jepson has been pushing for the plant, which would burn rubbish from Auckland and Northland to produce electricity.

A new community opposition group Stop the Kaipara Waste Incinerator has been set up to fight the plant. A national petition has also been launched, while a livestreamed public meeting in Kaipara is scheduled within weeks.

The new group has linked up with Canterbury’s Why Waste Waimate WtE plant opponents’ group, which has been fighting the potential establishment of a smaller equivalent facility run by the same company behind the proposed Kaipara industrial development for more than two years.

Why Waste Waimate spokesperson Robert Ireland said he was concerned people around Kaipara were getting the same initial information about the proposed WtE plant, which his community received when the plan for the Waimate plant in South Canterbury was first raised in September 2021.

Pouto resident Stephanie Barnes, who started Stop the Kaipara Waste Incinerator, said she had been shocked to read about the potential plant via a recent Local Democracy Reporting Northland story.

“I’m angry, I’m worried. A wasteto-energy plant should not be built anywhere in Kaipara, New Zealand or the world,” Barnes said.

She said there were health and environmental issues related to WtE plants.

I’m angry, I’m worried. A waste-toenergy plant should not be built anywhere in Kaipara, New Zealand or the world. Pouto resident Stephanie Barnes

Jepson refuted this, saying modern WtE plants were safe and efficient. Their technology had evolved to overcome the concerns

around emissions and pollutants of 30 years ago. Dangerous contaminants such as dioxins were no longer considered of concern, he said.

Barnes said Jepson and the council needed to be more up front.

“People need to know what’s going on. I don’t like anything that’s done behind closed doors,” she said.

However, Jepson said he had been giving educational presentations about the plant to a variety of people.

Mangawhai’s Caren Davis said many Kaipara people were alarmed and deeply concerned about the potential plant.

Meanwhile, national Zero Waste advocate Sue Coutts said the establishment of a Kaipara WtE plant would compromise efforts by the Government and local councils towards strengthening Northland as a renewable energy zone.

The new national Stop the Kaipara Waste Incinerator petition was launched via change.org in midMarch.

Jepson has been a WtE advocate for 25 years, since his involvement in WtE investment company Olivine NZ as a shareholder and spokesman, in its failed then $223m bid to convert Waikato’s former Meremere power station to a WtE plant.

Jepson spent a month at a WtE plant in France in 2020 to learn more about its operation and will soon travel to Vietnam, where he is scheduled to visit two WtE plants there.

He said the pending Vietnam travel was a family cycling trip and was not being paid for by any WtE company.

When Jepson became mayor in 2022, a WtE plant for Kaipara was one of his goals, but he did not campaign on this.

Kaipara ratepayer and plant opponent Jane Reed has lodged questions with the Kaipara District Council under the Official Information Act regarding whether the mayor has a pecuniary interest in the local plant.

Reed said she was also concerned the process seemed to be taking local democracy out of the picture.

Jepson said he did not have any pecuniary interest in the Kaipara plant or the land on which it would be built, and neither did his councillors.

Democracy was not being removed and there was nothing to consult on at this stage because no plant application had been made, Jepson said.

He said more detail about the plant would come after the current already year-long project looking into its potential arrival was completed early next year.

“We’re still investigating at this stage.”

Jepson said the investigation’s cost — which the council’s ratepayers are paying for — was “bugger all, just some council staff time”.

He said people would have a chance to have their say during the plant’s consenting. His preference is for this process to happen through the Government’s new fast-tracking legislation.