Sand mining: the local towns who say the hourglass is empty

Friday, 4 March 2022

Mangawhai locals say sand mining is harming an ecologically sensitive spit which shelters their harbour and was home to the critically endangered fairy tern. Environmentalists are questioning why New Zealand still permits the extraction. Andrea Vance reports.

At first they came with shovels, planks and wheelbarrows.

Throughout the 1940s and 50s, glistening white sand was extracted from Mangawhai Harbour, an indispensable resource used for glass and concrete in the post-war building boom. It was trucked to Auckland for construction.

A new wave of beach lovers was slowly discovering the Pacific coastline and rolling farmland was being transformed into two settlements, Mangawhai Heads and Mangawhai township.

It became a popular seaside destination. Holiday-goers were drawn by the surf beach, and the tranquil warm waters of the harbour. It was sheltered by a long sand spit, dominated by the ‘Mangawhai pyramid,’ an enormous hill.

**READ MORE:

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* High hopes for first fairy tern eggs of the season

**

As the population grew, the mining continued. Over half a century, 750,000 cubic metres (enough to fill 300 Olympic swimming pools) was removed. As technology became more sophisticated, more sand was vacuumed up from the sea floor into huge barges.

By the 1990s, up to 15,000 cubic metres (six swimming pools) was mined from the inlet each year. Commercial operators also began suction dredging from the sandbars off Pākiri Beach, to the south.

At first the changes weren’t obvious. Major storms in the 1970s and 1980s – including 1987’s Cyclone Bola – saw the ocean break through the spit. The harbour entrance silted up and its clear, blue waters became stagnant and polluted. Navigating the new entrance was perilous for boaties, even at high tide.

Natural forces had spoiled treasured holiday spots. But locals also began to question if the industrial sand mining was also reshaping their coastline.

For now, they had to breathe life back into the dying harbour. In the face of passivity from Kaipara District Council, Northland Regional Council and the Department of Conservation, locals decided to try and close the breaches and force the tidal water flow back to the original entrance. The February 1991 rebellion became known as ‘The Big Dig.’

It didn’t work. The sea broke through again. But over the next five years, working with ocean engineers André and Robin LaBonté, the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society returned the waterway to a pristine state. It cost $1.8m dollars.

Dunes are natural habitats for native species. The sand spit is also a wildlife refuge, a breeding ground for the rare fairy tern/tara iti, the dotterel/tūturiwhatu and home to colonies of threatened red-billed gulls.

But they also protect land and property from erosion, storms, cyclones and tsunamis.

Locals liken the effect of dredging to taking a spoonful from a sugar bowl: crystals fall to fill in the hole. André LaBonté says the sand spit was deflating. “It wasn't recovering as well as we had hoped.”

With their harbour restored, locals began a new fight – opposing the sand dredging. In 2004, Sea Tow and Norsand applied to Northland Regional Council to take 1.08 million cubic metres of sand from the harbour over 20 years.

The US-born LaBontés enlisted the help of their friend Professor Bob Dean of the University of Florida's civil and coastal engineering department. He told the council New Zealand was the only developed country that allowed sand mining close to the shore for anything other than beach replenishment. Another engineer reported signs of erosion that mirrored that which had destabilised Omaha's dunes.

The council’s own coastal consents manager and NIWA suggested mining be phased out to prevent long term damage. The council recommended to Minister of Conservation Chris Carter that he decline the applications. Both companies agreed not to appeal.

But the battle was not won: it moved further south.

Mined for 85 years, the white gold of Pākiri features in many of Auckland’s landmarks, from the Sky Tower to the Harbour Bridge, and even the new Waterview Tunnel. The sand is also used to replenish the city’s popular beaches, such as Mission Bay.

In 2003, Sea Tow and Auckland-based McCallum Bros, a 120-year old family mining business, applied to take 76,000 cubic metres of sand a year for 20 years near the shore. They wanted to dredge where the water was 5 to 10m deep. Pākiri falls within the Auckland boundary.

The community argued continued extraction would lead to beach and dune erosion and would spoil the significant natural character of the coastline.

Auckland Regional Council rejected the proposal, but after an Environment Court hearing, and appeal to the High Court, consent was granted to mine for a further 14 years.

In 2020, the consent expired and another will run out in 2023. Both Mangawhai and Pākiri stood ready to fight again. Consent applications to dredge up millions of cubic metres of sand from an 11km stretch of the coast are now being considered by Auckland Council.

Kaipara District Council, Greenpeace, the Endangered Species Organisation, Fairy Tern Trust, Surf Riders Association and Te Whānau o Pākiri are among those opposing the application. Hearings took place last week, and a decision is expected some time this month.

This is a David vs Goliath fight for the local communities. But all eyes are on the outcome. A global sand wars is raging over the world’s most consumed raw material. We are consuming sand at a rate far greater than the natural rate that it can be replenished.

Sand is mined from eight locations. The others are Te Hauturu-o-Toi/southwest of Kawhia Harbour, Waipipi, Tarankai, Awatoto in the Hawke’s Bay, and Whiritoa, on the Coromandel Peninsula.

A sand mining operation in coastal dunes is also proposed for Cape Foulwind, near Westport. The wild beauty spot is home to a seal colony, and at risk species including inanga/whitebait, longfin eels, great-spotted kiwi/roroa, and the West Coast green gecko, as well as a popular surf beach. The Department of Conservation has lodged an objection.

Sand is an essential ingredient to concrete and glass. Even the production of silicon chips requires sand. The construction industry needs sand shaped by water, with a rough, angular surface for sand to stick to. Ideally that comes from rivers.

The white Pākiri sand is especially precious. It comes from the ancient mouth of the Waikato River that used to come out into the Pacific Ocean, but was diverted to the Tasman by a volcanic eruption, 1800 years ago. Locals argue that makes it a finite resource – once it is gone, it’s gone.

“Enough is enough,” says Kaipara district mayor Jason Smith. “Tonnes of sand has already been taken, gone to other parts of New Zealand for people to walk on. It is locked up in buildings for concrete.”

Smith says the natural resource is now at a tipping point. “The decisions made within the next few months could set a course for this town forever.”

The district council is especially worried about the effects of climate change, including sea level rise and storm severity. At present, the spit shelters the Mangawhai Harbour settlements.

LaBonté agrees. “Sea level has been rising about 1.7 millimetres a year for the last 100 years and that's predicted to accelerate. The deflated sand spit is less protection for the community, especially if there's no additional sand coming into it.”

Locals are also sensitive about the investment already ploughed into keeping the estuary clean. Ratepayers are still paying off debt from a wastewater treatment plant at Mangawhai where costs ballooned to $90m. The council was sacked and replaced by commissioners in 2012. Households in the catchment also pay an $80-a-year targeted rate into a fund to help preserve Mangawhai Harbour.

It pays for earth and sand works to bolster the ocean frontage. That keeps the waters pure “and the ecosystem functioning at its absolute peak,” Smith says. He describes the harbour as a showpiece. “We're damn proud of that. All of that could be undone with another significant breach across the spit. The harbour would be changed forever.”

The risk posed by continued mining is unacceptable, he says. “The challenge to the environment, the ecosystem and the well-being of people here, as well as the mauri [life force] of the place is just unconscionable.”

The region’s unique wildlife is also a source of pride. Mangawhai – Stream of the Stingray – is named for the ghostly fish that glide through its shallow lagoon.

In every corner of the townships there are images of the dainty fairy tern, including Bennetts, a local chocolate factory which sells confectionery tara iti eggs. Only around 40 of the birds survive, mostly between Whangarei and Auckland. They breed successfully only on the sand spit and the nearly Waipu sandspit, at Pākiri River mouth and the Papakanui sand spit in the Kaipara Harbour.

They nest on a small scrape of exposed sand and DoC and the local Fairy Tern Trust expend considerable resource protecting them.

Natalie Jessup, general manager of the Endangered Species Foundation, was heartbroken when she learned of the sand mining from a flyer. Her father Gavin’s bach overlooks the sand spit. They’d seen the dredge travelling the coastline at night and assumed it was a fishing trawler.

She says the community gets no economic benefit from the mining. “Ecologically, the sand mining is sucking the life force out of sand and our beaches and our sea and we're losing whole ecosystems to this really destructive practice.

“We have 29 at risk or endangered bird species and nine breeding pairs of the tara iti. Of those nine six of them are based on the sand spit. This is their home and they are quite specific as to where they live.

“If we lose sand from the spit then that endangered bird could be losing more of its habitat, and it's already on the precipice of extinction.”

The community believe the barge – which operates at night – mines too close to the shore and breached the consent by crossing the Auckland/Northland boundary. They have engaged experts to help them argue the science.

With less sand making it onshore, it also causes erosion to dunes and foreshores. This sand extraction is causing erosion, destroying shellfish beds, stealing safe nesting spots from endangered birds and ruining surf breaks.

Friends of Pākiri Beach (FOPB) commissioned two scans of the seabed in February 2019 and September 2020. They showed huge trenches, several kilometres long and 20m wide gouged in the seabed. FOPB were furious their sea floor survey discovered the swales – which they said should have been disclosed by the McCallum Brothers, or through proper monitoring of the consent conditions.

What the scans showed proved “devastating” for Te Whānau o Pākiri. In the 1990s, former All Black Laly Haddon (Ngāti Wai) and his family fought to stop the sand being taken on cultural grounds. Their case failed. Haddon died in 2013, but his daughter Olivia has taken up the cause.

Haddon told the hearing that learning the trenches were “persistent and substantive, and resembling a ploughed paddock of hundreds of hectares” was a huge blow. They also confirmed the loss of important horse mussel and scallop beds “and are a direct result of seafloor sand mining,” she said.

Haddon also argued the mining would not maintain indigenous biodiversity in the coastal marine area and wider Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, the country’s oldest.

“Continued disturbance from sand mining has multiple cultural impacts, namely the loss of mauri [life force]…the sea floor ecology has been drastically altered,” she said. “Change has occurred, and natural character has been lost.”

The McCallum Bros pulled out of an interview organised by public relations company, pead. Callum McCallum told the hearing the mining is a “minor risk” to the beaches and foreshore. The concrete and aggregate industry argue the sand is essential for construction to meet Auckland’s housing and infrastructure needs.

Stuff asked Auckland Council what monitoring had occurred over the lifetime of the expired permits, how regularly, and whether any reports were produced, breaches recorded, or action taken. The council wouldn’t provide information on the monitoring before publication.

“Consented activities such as this, furnish detailed information to the council, confirming the activity has been undertaken within the requirements of the consent,” compliance general manager James Hassall said in a statement. ‘We are confident that a robust monitoring regime has been followed in this regard, and we have not received any information to suggest any breaches have taken place.” The council wouldn’t clarify if this meant it relied solely on self-reporting by the company.

Shaw Mead, a Raglan-based coastal oceanographer said the effects on the seabed were “more extensive and persistent than anyone envisaged.”

That’s backed by Adam Kellion, a second generation snapper and cray fisher. He’s seen the effects on his vessel’s sonar after the barge has gone through the area. “With my echo sounder, I've seen lots of changes, big channels, holes cut into the sea floor. Surely habitats is being destroyed down there?”

Kellion grew up at the beach. “This is home really. I'm down here swimming with my son every chance I can get. We gather seafood from here. We're Kiwis, we live at the beach, we're lucky to be able to enjoy what we've got. So we need to make sure it's protected for the future.”

Surfers are also mourning the loss of a popular break, off Te Arai Point. “There's no sand to form that wave,” says Tane Zanders, also a former commercial fisher. “It's just crashing straight onto the beach: a close out. The rips are getting stronger on the beach and getting more dangerous. The destruction is sad to see.”

Last year Greenpeace launched a petition calling on the Government to ban seabed mining. So far 30,000 people have signed. Campaigner James Hita points to the case of a proposal for iron sands mining in the Taranki Bight, which was quashed by the Supreme Court.

He says it’s wrong communities are having to fight through the courts to protect the foreshore and seabed. “That requires huge energy and resource, especially from our indigenous people.

“We don’t want to see seabed mining, the Government doesn’t seem to want it and the Supreme Court agrees. So it's about time we stopped relying on communities to oppose mining permits, and actually put the ban in place.”

Hita points to New Zealand’s weak stance on international sea bed mining. In September, governments represented at the IUCN World Conservation Congress voted for a resolution calling for a global moratorium on deep seabed mining. New Zealand was one of a handful of countries that abstained.

“They chose to sit on their hands as they often do in these international proceedings around seabed mining.”

A spokesman for environment minister David Parker said the government makes a distinction between offshore seabed mining and coastal sand dredging, which is managed under the Resource Management Act, which is being repealed and replaced.

“Consent applications for dredging and mining under both acts are put through a robust process of assessing potential environmental effects,” he said.

“While some sand dredging occurs in coastal waters, no seabed mining applications have ever been approved under the EEZ [Exclusive Economic Zone] Act.” He did not respond directly to a question about the Government's position on sea bed mining, and the call to ban it.