Feature
Down by the river
by Bruce Ansley
Continued from page 2...
Much less Meridian’s new alliance partner, the US giant Bechtel, which also designed Manapouri’s original power station. With close links to the Bush administration, Bechtel won the first big “reconstruction” contract in Iraq. The company is currently controversial over its water-privatisation ventures, suing the Bolivian Government after being chased out of that country by a popular uprising. A large part of the Aqua story, note, will be about water allocation.
Meanwhile, wider opposition is growing. Environmental and recreational groups argue that taking two-thirds of the river’s water will ruin one of the world’s rare braided rivers, terminally damage its ecosystem including endangered native birds, flora, the river’s trout and salmon fishery, its water quality, damage many of the district’s farms and its emerging wine industry.
“You can’t sell a river,” says farmer Mike Bayley. “It’s too precious, not just for now but for future generations. We just don’t want it to happen. We’re totally against it.”
Waitaki First is taking the four councils involved – Waitaki, Waimate and the Otago and Canterbury regional councils – to the High Court, seeking an injunction to stop the public notification and processing of resource consents. Its chair, Helen Brookes – whose beautiful garden will be 50m away from the new canal – argues that the new Local Government Act, in cases where an action will have significant consequences for a community, requires councils to consult with it before embarking on the consents process.
Locals already feel let down by “their” local council and Mayor McLay was even more unpopular at KALC’s meeting than Meridian. When he protested that they should be uniting against their “common enemy”, he was reminded that he had publicly supported Aqua previously. Poor McLay evidently doesn’t know what to think. “We’re a district that has been in decline for nearly 30 years,” he groans. “We’re in growth mode now and along comes Aqua and it’s causing us more grief …”
When cardies fight suits, the suits usually win.
Kurow has a little history on its side. Public outcry succeeded in stopping Lake Manapouri being raised. (Alan Mark, who led that fight, wrote in the Otago Daily Times that he was surprised by Meridian’s hard line on Aqua, given its excellent public relations over the second Manapouri tailrace [Listener, 15/6/02].)
But that was a historic last. Popular opinion favoured a series of low dams on the Clutha River, avoiding flooding Cromwell and much of the gorge; instead, Prime Minister Rob Muldoon foisted the hugely expensive Clyde high dam on them.
Meridian has already spent a lot of money downplaying the effects of its scheme on this valley, on trying to prove that it can improve upon nature.
But nature is already doing pretty well around here.
Meridian applied for its resource consents in May, hoped they would be “notified” (the public is given notice so that people can make submissions and have their say) by August and a date set for hearings by the end of the year.
Instead, Environment Minister Marian Hobbs “called in” some critical resource consents – that is, she decided they were so important that central government rather than local councils should deal with them. That left about 300 resource consents to be dealt with by local councils.
A week earlier, though, Hobbs had announced that resource-consent applications would be put on hold while she introduced special legislation on water allocation, deciding who gets what in the Waitaki Valley.
This is a critical issue. Farmers in the upper Waitaki are already bitter about Meridian’s monopoly on water, which they want for irrigation. Meridian says it can’t operate its existing power stations on the upper Waitaki without its water, much less build new ones.
Despite its SOE’s opposition – Seay says the company “actively advised” against it – the government is stepping into the fight.
Then Hobbs, evidently overlooking her earlier promise to put resource- consent applications on hold, announced her intention to notify the ones she had called in on December 6. She urged local councils to follow her lead.
So far, none of the four councils has shown any inclination to get in behind. “The government is floundering. We’re floundering,” says Waitaki Mayor Alan McLay.
The council is refusing to notify the applications until the new water allocation laws are revealed and the government irons out some of the problems with the consents process, such as its huge cost. So Waitaki says it won’t go any further until these matters are sorted. Two other councils, the Waimate council and Otago Regional Council, are likewise dissident. The last, Environment Canterbury, has yet to decide.
Groups such as KALC and Waitaki First are outraged at Hobbs notifying the applications over the Christmas holiday period, which they see as a cheap trick. “I believe she has been pressured by Meridian,” says Brookes.
But Meridian is scarcely happier.
The mess has led to a stalemate. It’s the reason that Seay says the hydro project is effectively on hold. “Almost 300 resource-consent applications are left in the hands of local bodies and we have no idea when they’re going to notify them. We don’t see a path. Delays can be fatal to Aqua.”
Despite the talk of other options, such as wind and solar power, Aqua remains the only readily accessible alternative on the books.
It even has some positives.
