Company's seabed mining bid to be reconsidered by new committee
Saturday, 2 July 2022
Fresh eyes will reconsider a bid by a company to mine iron sand from the ocean floor off the South Taranaki coast.
For almost a decade, Trans-Tasman Resources Limited (TTR) has tried to win the required consents from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to extract up to 50 million tonnes of sand each year from the seabed within the South Taranaki Bight.
The first go seeking the necessary consents was rejected by the EPA in 2013, but a follow-up application three years later was successful.
However, court action followed involving several parties, including Kiwis Against Seabed Mining and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Ruanui, and that decision was ultimately overturned.
**READ MORE:
* Seabed mining company TTR to press on with goal of extracting iron ore off the South Taranaki bight
* Both sides claim victory in Supreme Court ruling quashing South Taranaki seabed mining consents
* A lack of 'scientific credibility' to opposition to seabed mining in New Zealand
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Last September, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal brought by TTR, and upheld previous High Court and Court of Appeal decisions which had quashed the consents.
Following the Supreme Court decision, the application was sent back to the EPA for reconsideration.
In November last year, the authority and other interested parties applied to the High Court seeking directions on the makeup of the new decision-making committee (DMC), and what, if any, status the decision made by the former panel would have.
Following a High Court hearing in May, Justice Andru Isac’s June 28 judgment confirmed a new DMC was needed with either three or five members.
Other elements of the decision include that all information given to the previous DMC should be provided to the new group and that all submitters have an opportunity to respond to any fresh evidence TTR tabled to support its application.
Justice Isac’s ruling outlined how TTR had the opportunity to remedy the “information deficits” identified by the Supreme Court by providing new evidence as part of the application reconsideration process.
The judge highlighted how all parties had accepted the need to have a new DMC.
He went on say that the newly formed DMC may consider the decision of the original committee, despite it being dismissed through a series of appeals, if it chose to do so.
In a statement, Michelle Ward, EPA general manager of climate, land and oceans, said following the High Court ruling, the authority was now in the process of establishing a new decision-making committee to reconsider TTR’s application.
She, along with others, have been active in their opposition against TTR’s application as well.
In early June, a petition asking the Government to ban seabed mining in Aotearoa, which was signed by more than 35,000 people, was delivered to Parliament.