Southlanders worried about their Indus trial Revolution

Press, 14 August 1980, Page 17

So uthlanders worried about their Indus trial Revolution

Southland may be on the verge of- an industrial revolutionunsurpassed anywhere else in the country, but some Southlanders are. not sure they want the revolution.

“If they’re excavating down to 300 metres, we would want to know what is being left behind,” says the county clerk, Neil Farrell.

The . mining of hundreds of millions, of .tonnes of lignite i coal promises a bright fixture for .New Zealand’s fiielsupplies, and a boom for. a - region regarded by outsiders as a backwater. f

The council has found it very difficult to become involved, he adds. It has been excluded from investigating' • committees and reduced -to “just' another . objector”, if ' the development comes under tire National Development Act.

For critics of the project, however, the future is clouded with doubts and apprehension. Farmers, the group immediately effected by mining proposals, face traumatic changes. Owen McStay, president of Southland Federated Farmers, believes a strong case will have to be made before the Government and industry can plough ahead with the huge mining operation.

The council’s attitude is not destructive, though, he explains. Southland has possibly the most expensive facilities in the country in terms of the number of people serviced.

“One of the . resources we lack is. people. Roads, water, sewerage — they could all cope with more people than we’ve got,” Mr Farrell adds..

Anything' Which ■ increases the use of those facilities is of . “prime importance,” and the council would obviously be interested in a proposal to expand towns such as Winton or Mataura — or to create a new town near Hedgehope (between Mataura and Invercargill) in the style of Twizel, or the new town proposed (and rejected by locals) in Taranaki I to cope with huge energy projects in those two areas.

“There could be up to 1000 acres at a time with holes in the ground and massive piles of soil,” he says. “That’s quite a traumatic event to happen on our doorsteps.” Southland County is one of the wealthiest parts of New Zealand (building permits worth SIBM last year and they show no sign of falling off this year). The county council, responsible for servicing 27,000 people living on 3700 square miles of high quality land, is concerned that industrialisation does not harm the productivity on which that wealth is firmly based. - V

The Government still has a lot of homework to do. With a likely lead time of 10 years until the first drilling, however, it can probably save burning

at least the midnight oil at this stage, The very worst thing for it to do would be to withhold information, says the Federated Farmers’ legal Ruth. Richardson. “It can breed fear and that in. turn leads to emotional opposition.” Farmers ;; regard 1 themselves as . .the -long-term custodians of the land, while miners tend to be temporary landusers. “If you put a block on information, then expect the farming community to fight every inch of the way,” she warns.

Good public relations is essential and she feels satisfied with the Government’s approach to date. She succeeded in getting the Minister Of Energy, Mr Birch, to come down to Southland and talk to farmers earlier this year. At that meeting, the formation of a South Island Lignite Committee was announced, with a brief to look at the technical aspects of lignite mining. Ruth Richardson says Federated Farmers are endeavouring to widen the committee’s scope to include an environmental and social dimension, “so the impact is assessed and given equal weight.”

Farmers have three areas of concern: the siting of the open-cast mines; the return of the land to farming; and compensation for displacement of farmers.

The federation is doing a. study of what would be

“fair and equitable” compensation. Proposals include monetary compensation, or a shift to another farm and possibly eventual return to the original farm. Compensation under the Public Works Act is “vastly. inadequate,” Ruth Richardson says, but the provisions in the act are being reviewc’ 1 this year. “We have the luxury of time on our side and we should use that time profitably,” she adds.