Gore residents take aim at proposed rules
Low-income families and elderly residents will be left ‘‘miserable and shivering’’ if Environment Southland proceeds with its proposed regional air plan, Gore residents say.
On the second day of hearings into stage one of the plan, residents said the proposed changes failed to take into account local conditions.
Allan Katon said the proposal to outlaw appliances including solid fuel burners and some types of fuel sources used for home heating would hit the district’s underprivileged hard.
Many people were simply trying to ‘‘keep their heads above water’’ and elderly residents on fixed incomes and young families were already struggling to cope, he said.
‘‘Most just manage to get by using coal as their heating medium, and if it was abolished then it would be a miserable and shivering winter with costly, unaffordable heating,’’ Katon said.
Hearing commission chairman John Iseli said a pre-hearing report from Environment Southland staff recommended removing a highly controversial proposed ban on coal with a sulphur content exceeding 0.5 per cent.
However, the recommendation was not a final decision and the proposed sulphur content threshold – which would remove the popular Kai Point Coal as a home heating source – would still be considered by the hearing panel, Iseli said. Several residents welcomed this recommendation, but Allan Thomas said the 0.5 per cent threshold should be enforced to protect residents from the adverse health effects of sulphur.
Gore retiree Ernie MacManus, who installed heating appliances throughout Southland for 58 years, called on Environment Southland to abandon its proposal and ‘‘fight the Central Government’’.
It was unreasonable to intro- duce rules based on the incoming national air quality standards because they did not take into account the needs of colder areas or the abundance of coal available in Southland, MacManus said.
‘‘The Government has decreed a national standard that only suits the more densely populated parts of New Zealand,’’ he said.
Gore lawyer John Bannerman agreed and said the Government had ‘‘done a disservice’’ to areas like Gore.
Bannerman was particularly concerned about the impact on elderly residents.
Juliet Humphries questioned the results of air monitoring in Gore and whether there was an air quality problem.
The township’s air sampling monitor was situated next to an industrial boiler and State Highway 1, she said.
‘‘We firmly believe that there should have been several sampling locations over all of the township of Gore, which would give a much clearer snapshot of the air quality in Gore,’’ Humphries said.
In its submission, the Gore & Districts Budget Advisory Service said landlords would need to install heat pumps or complying fires to meet the proposed regulations.
With no financial support available to bring properties up to specification, the cost would be passed on to tenants, they said.
Families were already ‘‘skimping’’ on their grocery shopping so they could afford to pay their electricity bill, they said.
Sally McIntyre, Brian Bennett and John Gardyne said coal was a cost-effective heating source, and heat pumps were unaffordable for most Southlanders.
Allistair Meikle and Murray Wilson agreed and described the proposal as ‘‘a waste of ratepayers’ money’’.
Hearings into the plan will continue in Invercargill on June 15 and are expected to finish on June 18.
A decision on the expected in late 2015.
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