Attack on information to back up plan for seabed iron sand mining

Tuesday, 17 April 2018

After more than 6000 people signed the petition calling for a mortatorium on seabed mining, Ngāti Ruanui brought its protest to Parliament. (File photo)

The attack on the information submitted with the application for seabed mining of iron sand, has increased with Greenpeace weighing in at a court hearing.

The lawyer for Greenpeace and Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, Davey Salmon, said the application by Trans-Tasman Resources Ltd to mine off the Taranaki coast, was unprecedented.

The 66 square kilometres, in green, off the South Taranaki coast where Trans-Tasman Resources have conditional consent to mine iron ore.

Justice Peter Churchman has already been told in the High Court in Wellington that it was believed to be a world first.

On Tuesday Salmon said the system of mining the seabed for iron sand, processing it, and spitting most back was like filling the Westpac Stadium with sediment and dumping it back into a sensitive environment once a week.

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The way sediment behaved depended on how it was handled, where it was released, and how, Salmon said.

He said the Environmental Protection Authority decision making committee had breached basic rules of natural justice in the hearing on Trans-Tasman's application.

The application for marine and discharge consents was approved in August 2017 on conditions that included a two-year information-gathering exercise. Other consents were needed before mining could start, Salmon said.

Experts advising opponents of the plan should have been given a chance to see the information, test it and criticise it, but it would not be available for two more years, he said.

Earlier on Tuesday the judge was told the application was approved without proper information about whether critically endangered species like Maui dolphin were in the area.

The lawyer for the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, Martin Smith, said every indication was that the decision making committee did not properly consider the effect of seabed mining on marine mammals.

It did not have information about the presence or absence of marine mammals, some critically endangered or species of concern, he said.

The application from Trans-Tasman Resources Ltd could have been declined, favouring caution and environmental protection, because of the lack of information, Smith said.

The committee accepted the data it was given had to be treated with caution.

The committee went on to make findings, without explaining how the information they said was to be treated with caution, was nevertheless sufficient, Smith said.

One expert had told the committee that a minimum of three years of study would be needed to know about the seasonal patterns of marine mammals.

The Environmental Protection Authority had appointed a four-person decision-making committee to consider the Trans-Tasman Resources application.

The committee was split on the outcome, giving the chairman the deciding vote to grant the company 35-year marine and discharge consents, with conditions, to annually mine up to 50 million tonnes of iron sand in the South Taranaki Bight.

Eleven parties have appealed against the approval.

Even before it is given an appeal against the High Court decision has already been foreshadowed. Lawyer for the Māori and fishing interests, Francis Cooke, QC, said whatever the outcome it was likely the case would go further.

The hearing is due to end this week.