Farmers to fight rail line to steel mill

Press, 10 February 1982, Page 13

Farmers to fight rail line to steel mill

PA Hamilton Federated Farmers is gearing up for a “full-scale" battle to stop a railway line linking New Zealand Steel, Ltd's mining at Waikato north to its Glenbrook mill.

The $l2 million rail link forms part of a planned $865 million expansion of the mill — one of the Government's key “think big” projects. Describing the proposal as “totally indefensible.” Federated Farmers' legal adviser, Mr Gerard McCoy, said the line threatened to dissect the most productive dairy land in the country. He challenged the Environment Minister for the (Dr Shearer) to order a full environmental impact audit of all the the options available to take ironsands to the mill.

A Commission for the Environment impact report on the railway proposal, prepared by the Railways Department and which is due to be released, was “not binding” and the railway could still go ahead, he said. The Commission has since announced that it will audit alternative transport options. Commission officials said an environmental impact audit on ironsand transport would consider not only proposed railway routes between the Waikato Heads deposits and the mill, but also impacts of

moving the sands by road or aerial ropeway. The Commission had decided earlier not to audit the transport options. Federated Farmers would take legal action on the proposal at the Planning Tribunal and could seek a High Court injunction against farmers' land being seized under the Public Works Act. Federated Farmers was preparing for a “full-scale fight,” feeding figures on the land's production trends through the Dairy Board's computer. Mr McCoy said he would visit Waiuku landowners on a second trip to seek information for the case.

A group of landowners has already lobbied the Government to investigate the “environmentally unsound" proposal and its leader, Mr Len Heard, has asked Dr Shearer to fully investigate all the transport options making the costs public. According to New Zealand Steel’s managing director, Mr John Ingram, rail is the cheapest of feasible options the company has investigated, including an aerial, road and rail system. The railway is designed to carry about 1.5 million tonnes of ironsand concentrate each year to the mill. Mr McCoy criticised a transport report prepared on the transport options as containing “unbelievable” accounting and “very nebulous figures." He said an investigative accountant had examined the report. Half a page of figures had been used to prove that rail was the least expensive option. Others were in percentages, not dollar values, which made if difficult to assess the cost components

of the proposal. Mr McCoy said he was very concerned that the situation represented a “classic case of pre-emption.'' It was absolutely essential that the mode of transport, rather than just the railway option, were investigated by the Government's audit procedures, he said. Mr McCoy said the preferred route for the railway could affect 43 farms — on milk-fat figures the most productive dairy country in New Zealand.

The question of land severance was most important, he said. The railway would pass 40 metres above paddock level causing a visual intrusion, and dissecting farms. There was no guarantee that farmers would be provided with an adequate underpass which cows or trucks could use to cross farms, he said. The land was intensively farmed and the railway would pass within about six metres of some homesteads.