WAIRAU CONSENT DELAY FRUSTRATES PARTIES
09 July 2008
Dave Williams
Frustrations are beginning to emerge as the Marlborough District Council continues to work on the final decision on TrustPower's $280 million Wairau River hydro scheme.
Both TrustPower and scheme opponents are in the dark as to when the final decision will come out, before it heads to the Environment Court.
The interim decision granting consent to the 70MW canal scheme was released in June last year.
The hearing into consent conditions finished on February 21 this year, but nearly five months later there is no word on when the decision will be released, even though the hearing panel gave the council its final decision over six weeks ago.
Save the Wairau vice chairman Ron Tannock said his group was in limbo.
"The Marlborough District Council has always prided itself on transparency, but opaque is coming into the vocabulary more and more.
"We are a voluntary organisation and the effect is probably just a tad more than curiosity.
"You begin to wonder what might be happening," he said. "All we are asking for is a bit of openness."
Council principal planner Peter Constantine said one officer was working on the decision.
"The time taken to release this decision is entirely justifiable given its complexity. Taking time to get it right rather than merely rushing out a decision is something that should give confidence that council takes seriously its role under the Resource Management Act.
"The conditions decision is complex because there are a large number of separate consents required for this project and each has a suite of conditions attaching to it," he said.
"There is a real need for care and attention to detail to ensure that the conditions are appropriate, properly relate to the particular consent, and do not create conflict within the overall consent bundle."
Fish and Game regional manager Neil Deans said it was ironic that at the start of the project the process was rushed, and it was a mystery as to why the decision had been made but not released.
"The longer it goes on the more people leap to all sorts of conclusions or start to speculate."
Mr Deans said the commissioners were charged with making the decision and it was strange that the council was now keeping the decision and potentially making changes.
"They can't do that, they have to defend whatever decision the commissioners come up with," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry for the Environment said it could not comment without detail of the case.
"In general, the ministry encourages councils to implement their resource consent processes in an effective and timely way, in accordance with the RMA," she said.
TrustPower community relations manager Graeme Purches said such delays were frustrating for all concerned.
The company had not been anticipating any significant changes to conditions and had expected the decision to take three months at the outside.
Mr Purches said TrustPower's lawyers had been in touch with the council about a week ago seeking progress.
Delays meant project costs escalated and the same applied to the company's planned wind farms.
"When the country needs energy it's bloody ridiculous. There's no cheaper time to do things than today."
© 2008 Fairfax New Zealand Limited. All Rights Reserved.
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