No seabed mining in Taranaki waters as court decision overturns EPA consent

Friday, 3 April 2020

Ngāti Ruanui kaiarataki Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says the decision against seabed mining off the South Taranaki coast set a precedent that would have national and international implications.

An appeal by iwi, environmental groups and fishing companies to stop seabed mining off South Taranaki's rugged coast has been upheld.

The Court of Appeal has found the Environmental Protection Authority's (EPA) decision in 2017 to grant a marine discharge consent to Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) to mine ironsand was not consistent with the law to protect the environment from harmful substances.

The proposal to mine the seabed for iron ore was widely unpopular in Taranaki.

The court said there were multiple overlapping errors of law in the approach adopted by the EPA's Decision Making Committee (DMC).

The EPA's 2017 decision was already contentious. It had required a casting vote to break the deadlock required to grant the 35-year consents needed for the mining to proceed. .

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The court found the committee had failed to address the central question of whether granting a marine discharge consent would be consistent with the objective set out in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) Act in relation to discharges of harmful substances, e.g. to protect the environment from pollution.

Taranaki iwi Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui and Te Kaahui o Rauru welcomed the court's decision to stop Trans-Tasman Resources' plans for seabed mining off the South Taranaki Bight.

The historic decision set a precedent that would have national and international implications, Ngāti Ruanui kaiarataki Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said in an emailed release.

It was the third time the DMC decision had been appealed, she said.

Kiwis Against Seabed Mining (KASM) and Greenpeace both said the decision was 'a victory for the oceans.'

'This sends a powerful message that New Zealand waters are not open for pillage by seabed miners. We doubt very much that any future investor would now have the appetite for throwing money at what is clearly a lost cause,' KASM chairwoman Cindy Baxter said in an emailed release.

Greenpeace spokeswoman Jessica Desmond said the proposed seabed mining would have set a very bad precedent for other companies waiting in the wings.

'The court's decision will be felt across the Pacific where communities are fighting other similarly damaging huge seabed mining projects,' she said.

In August 2017 TTR had been granted consent to annually mine up to 50 million tonnes of ironsands from a 66-square-kilometre area off the South Taranaki Bight. The decision to grant consent was widely unpopular in Taranaki.

TTR had planned to extract iron ore for export using a remote-controlled dredge to vacuum sand from the seabed for processing on a massive ship anchored offshore. The ore would have been shipped directly to China from there.

Opponents said the noise and sediment plume would cause fish to avoid the area, and would result in long term, if not permanent, damage to the environment.

TTR said the area was already intensively fished, had gas and oil installations, and was a rugged environment subject to naturally occurring sediment flows from rivers.