West Coast pure water scramble
An Auckland company is claiming to represent the owners of a huge water bottling permit on the West Coast – but the owners say they have nothing to do the company.
Alpine Pure, owned by Aucklanders Bruce Nisbett and John Malyon, has told potential overseas buyers it represents the company that owns the biggest water take right in New Zealand.
Alpine Pure’s brochure says: ‘‘We are Alpine Pure Limited. We represent Okuru Enterprises Limited, who hold the water rights.’’
The owner of the rights, Okuru Enterprises, says it has ‘‘nothing to do’’ with Alpine Pure.
Okuru Enterprises is owned by a local collective who secured the water consent in the 1990s.
The West Coast Regional Council gave the final consent this month for Okuru to export 800,000 tonnes of water monthly – about 800 million litres – from Jackson Bay. The allowance is more than the next 10 water take consents in New Zealand combined.
The application to withdraw and sell water from Mt Aspiring National Park has aroused fierce opposition from water activists.
The area is home to the rare Haast kiwi, which Okuru has agreed to help protect.
Okuru board chair Peter Roselli said Alpine Pure should not claim to represent them.
‘‘They shouldn’t be saying that because we have nothing drawn up with them at all. We have no agreement with Alpine Pure. We have nothing to do with them.’’
Nisbett and Malyon own a company that draws up paperwork for shipping companies, Oceanic Navigation. The business partners set up Alpine Pure in 2016 to bid for the water.
Both Nisbett and Malyon have small shareholdings in Okuru.
The plan is to build a dam just outside the national park boundary, collect the water from a reservoir and pipe it out along the sea floor for 2 kilometres.
From there, the pipe will come up to a buoy mooring where tankers will ship the water in 100,000 tonne lots.
It appears no-one has the money to fund the expensive enterprise. Alpine Pure says it is looking for prospective buyers in places like China.
Roselli said Okuru policy was to grant access rights to the first person who could come up with the money.
The chair denied Okuru had an informal or unspoken agreement with Alpine Pure.
‘‘We haven’t even got an unwritten deal. Bruce is hoping we can supply our water to them. Lots of others are in the same position.’’
Malyon said Alpine Pure was not claiming to act on behalf of Okuru, but rather it was exclusively interested in the Okuru water consent and no other.
‘‘We’re not trying to [arrange or] sell a deal with anyone else other than Okuru,’’ he said.
‘‘The term representative is not misleading . . . we’re specifically targeting the Okuru water supply.’’
He said he did not know who used the wording in the brochure.
Nisbett was not available for comment.