MIKE WATSON & TOM PULLAR-STRECKER
Last updated 14:38, August 10 2017
A mining company should be allowed to dredge 50 million tonnes of iron sand a year from the South Taranaki Bight, the Environmental Protection Authority says.
However, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM) and Ngati Ruanui have already indicated they will appeal the ruling, delivered on Thursday, to the High Court.
The EPA was split on the controversial seabed mining application lodged by Trans Tasman Resources (TTR), with two members of its four-person decision-making committee issuing a “strongly dissenting opinion”.
READ MORE:
* Hearing opens on massive taranaki iron sands mining project
* Iwi criticises lack of notice by EPA of iron sand mining application hui
* Trans Tasman Resources reapply to mine iron ore in South Taranaki
* South Taranaki iwi call for more transparency in seabed mining application
* Trans-Tasman Resources apply for new permit to mine iron ore from seabed
The seabed mine would cover an area of 66 square kilometres, between 22km and 36km off the west coast of South Taranaki.
The 66 square kilometres off the South Taranaki coast where Trans Tasman Resources have applied to mine iron ore.
TTR has said it would be “a sustainable and world leading development” that would have little environmental effect.
But the venture has been opposed by KASM, Patea-based iwi Ngati Ruanui, environmental groups Greenpeace and Forest & Bird, and by Talley’s Fisheries which also submitted against the mining when a previous application by TTR was declined by the EPA in 2014.
Among the concerns is the possible impact on blue whales and Maui’s dolphins.
Ngati Ruanui, one iwi whose territory TTR has applied to mine iron sand in, protested at parliament in late 2016.
EPA chief executive Allan Freeth said mining would not start “tomorrow”.
TTR would have to wait until after any High Court appeal before it could put its plans into action.
Assuming the EPA’s decision was upheld, TTR would then have to spend two years monitoring the marine environment before it did any mining.
An artist impression of sand mining.
Last year a 6000-signature petition was presented to Parliament by KASM and Ngati Ruanui calling for a moratorium on seabed mining.
Much of their concern focused on the sediment plume that would be generated by the mine.
Delivering the EPA’s ruling, Freeth said the plume would spread from the mined zone into the coastal marine area – killing low-living organisms and possibly causing fish to avoid the area.
“Noise at a level likely to cause behavioural impacts will extend for some considerable distance in all directions.”
But all the effects would be “in some sense temporary”, he said.
Research found at least five threatened species of invertebrates lived within the proposed mining area.
The project would involve extracting about a quarter of a cubic kilometre of iron sands weighing a billion tonnes from under the sea.
Iron one would be separated from waste on a processing ship with about 90 per cent of the material returned to the seabed into previously mined areas.
TTR estimated the mine would generate $310 million a year in export earnings and $6.2m in royalties for the Crown, directly creating 463 jobs, including 367 in the Taranaki region.
James Stevenson-Wallace, general manager of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s energy and resources division, said during earlier hearings that approving the mining would send a positive signal to foreign investors.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/95546761/ttr-ironsand-mining-decision-approved
Well well well
The issue – as I see it – is this: We are destroying our environment to provide non-sustainable business with an ever-depleting resource. Who wins here? In the long run – nobody.
The elite only care about lining their pockets. They don’t give a damn about the environment or future generations, just greed.Reptilian-brain thinking.