Oamaru’s port without a ship has been given another chance

Press, 9 July 1983, Page 17

Oamaru’s port without a ship has been given another chance

A Government-appointed quango, the New Zealand Ports Authority, is a “relatively unimportant” organisation, according to one Cabinet Minister. However, this quango has halted one of the Government’s growth-strategy projects — the proposed $l5O million cement works at Weston. North Otago people want the decision overturned. Story and photographs by ALLAN GARDYNE.

A century ago, Oamaru had a bustling port. As the small town’s economy developed, ships took on cargoes of wool, wheat, tallow, sheepskins, Oamaru stone, and frozen meat.

The waterfront had a cosmopolitan air as the markets of Europe became easily accessible to the businessmen of Oamaru. Often, six to 10 vessels at a time were anchored at the harbour.

Gradually the trade slipped away from Oamaru. Bigger ships were built and shipping became concentrated in larger ports. As well, the railways made deep inroads into the port’s traditional sources of income. Eventually, Oamaru had a port without a ship. In 1975 the word became official — the port was declared closed to shipping. Many Oamaruvians would like to see the old port bustling with activity again. Droughts regularly affect the region; retailing is in the doldrums; and better-educated young adults with intelligence, drive, and ambition tend to leave for the cities. The population (13,000) declined by 400 at the last census.

“It’s now or never,” says an Oamaru bookseller, Mr Len Stevens. Something is needed to inject new life into the town.

Over the last 50 years work on the Upper Waitaki power schemes has helped the economy of the region, but now Twizel is rapidly dwindling and the proposed Lower Waitaki power scheme is in limbo. The hopes of Oamaru people seemed to be fulfilled when Christ-church-based N.Z. Cement Holdings, Ltd, decided in 1977 that it wanted to build a cement works at Weston, on Oamaru’s boundary, and ship bulk cement out of the port. The company had examined 18 sites throughout New Zealand, seeking a replacement site for the 50-year-old cement factory at

Burnside (Dunedin) which is outdated, energy-inefficient, and faces dwindling stocks of limestone.

Oamaru seemed to have all the necessary components. As well as huge resources of limestone, it has clay, sand, lignite coal, and the South Island 25 per cent electricity subsidy. It also has a port, just waiting to be brought back to life. The company came up with some grand schemes: to build at the port a 12 to 14-storey-high silo, and cement-handling facilities, including a bulk-cement loader and a 400-metre conveyor along Holmes Wharf.

The harbour would be dredged and a new T-shaped marina would be provided for about 30 boats. Old Sumpter Wharf, which is unsafe, would have to be demolished. Cement would be manufactured 24 hours a day.

The estimated cost of the cement works has doubled in six years

from ?75 million to 5150 million. A 10 megawatt power supply — about 40 per cent of the output now handled by the Waitaki Electric Power Board — would come from the national grid. Some bagged cement, about 131,000 tonnes annually, would be railed to Timaru port for exporting. The remainder, perhaps 250,000 tonnes a year, would go by truck to the reopened Oamaru port, and be shipped to New Zealand markets. At maximum capacity, 16 hours a day, five days a week, trucktrailer units would carry bulk cement through the town to the port. The cement factory could make a ship-load of cement every six days. Imaginative people employed by N.Z. Cement saw that there were many other ways to shift the cement from the works to the port. They could have chosen an aerial ropeway, a belt conveyor, staged pumping, staged elevators, air slides, or shuttle cars inside pipes. Trucking was by far the cheapest. Rail would cost twice as much, and capsule tube (excluding the cost of land or rights of way) more than five times as much. N.Z. Cement continued its detailed research. By 1980, 51 million had been spent on the project. Tenders were called for the main items of equipment.

Mr Muldoon was enthusiastic. Oamaru would get a “deep-water” port, he told an election meeting. The M.P. for Waitaki, Mr Jonathan Elworthy, who is now Minister of Lands, liked the idea. Regional development policies were working, he said. Plans were made. Experts were consulted. Hearings were held and objections listened to. The local authorities approved the project. Most people in Oamaru wanted the think-big project to go ahead. Many had misgivings about the thought of trailer-truck units going through a residential area — on

average one every six minutes from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. However, the injection of about 55 million a year in wages and payment for goods and services would be a valuable boost for the town.

The project would strengthen the economy of North Otago and it would boost the labour force of about 8000 by 120 to 140. When the Oamaru Harbour Committee applied to the New Zealand Ports Authority for permission to reopen the port, and N.Z. Cement sought permission to develop it, the result seemed a foregone conclusion.

N.Z. Cement had prepared its case well. It has had an interest in North Otago for decades, acquiring a half share in McDonald’s Lime Company, Ltd, in the 19605, and buying Taylor’s Lime Company, Ltd, in 1961.

Twenty-three years ago the Oamaru Harbour Board (now replaced by the harbour committee) was told — in confidence — that N.Z. Cement might want to use the port for shipping cement. The company called in townplanning advisers, consulting engineers, an agricultural consultant, an acoustic physicist, and a traffic engineer.

It promised to obey local-body regulations, as well as the Clean Air Act, Health Act, Soil Conservation Act, etc., etc.

It acquired a coal-mining licence, and applied for the necessary water rights. To detractors, the company pointed out that its Burnside cement works had won an Environmental Award — and the Weston works would be far better.

Open-cast mining tests were made, and the people of North Otago were assured that topsoil would be replaced and grass resown. Photographs distributed showed lush pasture where once mainly weeds had grown.

The company has now spent between 52 million and 53 million on the project, says the managing director, Mr Murray Wilson. Last month, the Ports Authority shocked Oamaru by announcing that the Oamaru port would not be reopened; Timaru would be the port for coastal distribution of bulk cement from Weston.

The applications had been considered “in terms of national ports planning.” Timaru port, 80km away, is under-utilised and struggling financially. Projected tonnages are well short of the break-even volume of 425,000 tonnes annually. The Ports Authority said the Ports Authority Act does not clearly define national interest. The authority decided the national interest would be served by choosing the method of handling cement from Weston “which provides the most efficient and economic use of existing port facilities and transport services.” Unless the company could prove that it would be substantially cheaper to use the Oamaru port, Oamaru should not be used, the Ports Authority decided. Railing the cement to Timaru would cost an extra 83 cents a tonne — and make the whole project uneconomic, according to N.Z. Cement.

Reaction to the announcement was swift, and angry. The Oamaru Harbour Committee chairman, Mr Arthur Familton,

said it was an “incredible” decision by an authority appointed by a socalled free-enterprise government. The Mayor, Mr Reg Denny, declared: “We are forced to fight the bureaucracy.” A “deeply disappointed” Mr Elworthy said red tape was constipating regional development, and that the future of the Ports Authority must be in question. The managing director of N.Z. Cement, Mr Wilson, was “astounded” and said: “. . . if cement is not shipped through Oamaru there will be no works.” The company has always insisted that railing the cement to Timaru would make the whole project nonviable.

North Otago people refused to accept that the project would have to be abandoned. As they rallied to the cause, it was one of those rare times when borough and county spoke with one voice. Pukeuri freezing workers organised a petition, 2600 people signed a telegram sent to politicians, and a public meeting in what the Mayor called “filthy” weather attracted about 700 people, including representatives of many Dunedin groups supporting Oamaru’s fight. Said the Mayor of Dunedin, Mr Cliff Skeggs: “If Oamaru and Otago in general do not belong to the nation, then where do we fit in?” It seemed that the only people

who were pleased lived north of the Waitaki River. The chairman of the Timaru Harbour Board, Mr B. J. Petrie, said he sympathised with the people of North Otago over the decision, but it sustained the view of the board that the Oamaru application “could not be proved to be in the national interest nor in accordance with national ports planning.” In Oamaru now, a month after the Ports Authority decision was made, the sense of outrage has changed to one of cynical optimism. It is believed that a political decision will be made, and that it will be one favourable to Oamaru.

In the Waitaki electorate, Mr Elworthy is sitting on a majority of only 305. Mr Elworthy says that he will be helped in the election by the dwindling of the Labour stronghold of Twizel, and he talks confidently about his election chances, but almost no-one seems to believe him.

The Mayor, Mr Denny, says: “I’ve heard an awful lot of people say that National can’t hope to hold the seat if they don’t reopen the port. “Jonathan Elworthy is doing his level best for us and I don’t think that he should feel that he’s being put under political pressure for it.” An Oamaru businessman, not willing to be named, puts it this way: “Jonathan has mentioned the

cement works till he’s blue in the face ... He made a political issue out of it, and he will suffer if it doesn’t go ahead.” The Labour Party, not surprisingly, blames the Government. The chairman of the Waitaki electorate of the party, Mr Tom Shanks, says the reason the Oamaru port is not already open is that the Government’s economic policy contradicts its Oamaru election promises.

The chairman of the Oamaru Harbour Committee, Mr Familton, says: “I’m trying to keep politics out of it, but you can’t. The best thing that ever happened was Mr Elworthy’s plane being grounded (by bad weather) the night we had the big meeting. “It was a purely North Otago effort to reopen the port and demonstrated to the Government that there was a lot of support there, with no politics mentioned. “And it went over big. They knew the next morning in Wellington.”

N.Z. Cement and the Oamaru Borough Council are appealing against the decision on the Oamaru port. Going to the appeal authority, Mr Familton says, gives North Otago A chance to tell the Government: “We are expecting a lot from the M.P. in our area.

“We can say, ‘lf you’re not going to play ball in North Otago, you can forget the Waitaki seat’.”