Opponents livid as seabed mine project clears fast-track hurdle
By Bill Hickman of RNZ
A company's plan to mine 50 million tonnes of South Taranaki seabed every year has cleared the first hurdle in the Fast-track process.
Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) executive chair Alan Eggers said he was "delighted" the company's application for its Taranaki VTM project had been accepted as complete and would now move on to the next stage of the process.
Opponents, meanwhile, are "livid" and have vowed to continue their fight against the project.
TTR wants to mine 50 million tonnes of seabed a year for 30 years in the South Taranaki Bight.
Eggers said the company had identified a world-class vanadium resource that could contribute $1 billion annually to the economy.
"It'll generate export revenues of around $850 million a year which will make it New Zealand's 11th or 12th largest exporter.
"Within the region it'll generate about 1150 jobs. We would spend about $230m annually and it'll generate $190m in government royalties and taxes per annum," Eggers said.
Eggers denied the approval process was a "short cut" to avoid environmental compliance.
"We still have to comply with the embedded safeguards for the environment in the EEZ Act [Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf Act 2012]. The Fast Track Act includes us having to comply with all the conditions and management plans that were approved under the EEZ Act."
He said the project planned to magnetically extract and export 5 million tonnes of heavy mineral sands containing iron ore and the critical minerals vanadium and titanium each year.
"Our research and marine reports have been independently peer reviewed by international experts in their areas in terms of marine ecologies and plume effects," Eggers said. Opponents warns of harm to wildlife, environment
Greenpeace seabed mining campaigner Juressa Lee said dumping the remaining 45 million tonnes of sand back in to ocean each year would threaten marine life such as the pygmy blue whale, Māui and Hector's dolphins and the world smallest species of penguin, kororā - which migrated through the area.
"Investors in TTR's project are trying to pull the wool over the public's eyes, telling us to 'trust the science'. But TTR has never been able to alleviate the courts' concerns for harmful impacts on wildlife and the environment."
The head of Kiwi's Against Seabed Mining is "livid" at the approval.
Cindy Baxter says there is "massive opposition" to the project, and seabed mining in general.
"A couple of weeks ago we saw 500 hundred people paddle out in Ōpunake against seabed mining. You've got many of the councils who are against it, you've got all the iwi, you've got surfers, you've got people who love their ocean, even the fishing industry is against it."
People were angry at being "shut out" of the approval process, she said.
"We're not allowed to make submissions - and it's the public opposition that has stopped this process so far - so that's why Christopher Luxon's government has shut us out of the process."
If the project was successfully approved, it would create a precedent for seabed mining on coastlines all across the country, Baxter believed.
"When we first started opposing this in 2012 there were companies all waiting in the wings for this first application to get across the line and, if it does, it'll be open slather on our coastlines."
Activists would continue to oppose the project.
"We will continue to make our voices heard and we're going to fight this all the way - as far as we can - through the courts. If we need to get into boats and go out into the ocean to stop them we'll do that as well," Baxter said.
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