Miners, irrigators and developers get letters
Groups that received letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration include some with applications previously rejected by the courts.
Earlier this month, RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop sent form letters to 200 groups, telling them how to apply for consideration under the Fast-Track Approvals Bill.
The Bill, which closed for public submissions yesterday, would allow projects to bypass the standard resource consent process. It would effectively give three ministers the final say on approving infrastructure projects, based on recommendations by an advisory group.
The Government has said the law would make it faster and easier to build economically significant infrastructure, but environmentalists fear it would rubber-stamp environmentally destructive projects.
Hours before submissions on the Bill were set to close yesterday, Bishop released a list of the organisations that had received letters. They include companies involved in mining, property development, irrigation, solar, and aquaculture.
Among them was Stevenson Mining, which had its plans for a mine at Mt Te Kuha near Westport scuttled by the Environment Court last year. The company recently withdrew its appeal of that decision, seemingly in the hopes of submitting for fast-track approval.
Another was Chatham Rock Phosphate, which has long sought to mine rock phosphate from the seabed on the Chatham Rise, east of the South Island. The EPA rejected a previous consent application to do so. Other recipients included King Salmon, which had a proposal to farm fish in parts of the Marlborough Sounds thwarted by the Supreme Court in 2014, and National Steel, which has faced controversy for its Christchurch scrapyard near the the Ōpāwaho/Heathcote River.
Letters also went to companies with significant projects on the books in the South Island.
They included Amuri Irrigation Company, which has sought to expand irrigation in the Hurunui District; Far North Solar Farm, which has proposed the country’s largest solar farm in the Mackenzie Basin; Southern Parallel Campus Limited, which has proposed an equestrian centre at Lake Hood near Ashburton; and Santana, which wants to mine for gold in Central Otago.
Bishop said the list did not indicate what, if any, projects would be submitted.
“Having been sent this letter in no way guarantees that an applicant will choose to submit a project into the new process,” he said in a statement. “If they did choose to submit a project, having received the form letter from me does not mean they would receive any preferential treatment.”
In response to the list’s release, Forest & Bird reiterated its opposition to the Bill and called for more public input.
“In light of this just-released information, at the very least, the select committee needs to extend the submission process so that people have time to see what kind of environmental destruction is being proposed in their communities,” conservation and advocacy manager Richard Capie said.