Sandmining licence to be contested

Press, 16 August 1984, Page 21

Sandmining licence to be contested

By

DERRICK ROONEY

A major conservation row is looming over what many people might regard as one of the most bleak and inhospitable areas of Canterbury: the Kaitorete Spit and its barrier dune system which protects Lake Ellesmere from the Pacific Ocean.

A Christchurch company, W. A. Habgood, Ltd, which has been extracting sand from, a I.2km stretch of the eastern dunes since 1952 but whose Lands and Survey Department permit to do so has now expired, has applied formally to the Ministry of Energy for a sandmining licence covering a greatly extended area. The licence, if granted, will be contested before the Planning Tribunal by the Royal Forest and Bird Society and probably by other conservation and scientific organisations.

Since 1964 Habgoods has held a permit from the Lands and Survey Department to mine sand from the Spit to supply Christchurch industrial users. The area being mined is vacant Crown land.

Initially the permit was issued for five years, but the term was

later reduced to one year, and more recently to six months. Last year the company was told that its permit would not be renewed, and that it should apply under the Mining Act for a mining licence. It is believed that the instruction to do this came from the department’s head office.

According to a report in the August issue of “Forest and Bird” magazine, published today, the company was, on March 8, given three months to apply for a licence.

An application was posted on June 26. The national conservation officer of the Royal Forest and Bird Society (Dr Gerry McSweeney) says the area covered by the application extends over a further 23.4 ha of pingao-covered dunes, but the executive director of Habgoods (Mr A. Anderson) declined to confirm this.

Any comment he made at this stage might well prejudice the company’s future activities, Mr Anderson said.

Under the procedure laid down in the Mining Act the Mines Divi-

sion of the Ministry of Energy will refer the report to other departments or agencies which have an interest in the land, and to the North Canterbury Catchment Board and the Wairewa County Council. The council is required to advertise receipt of the application, and to make a copy available for inspection at its offices. It must also report to the Ministry on the social, economic and environmental effects of the proposal on the district, and may take such steps as it considers necessary to ascertain public opinion. Once all these reports are in the Minister of Energy will either decline the application, or establish conditions on which it may be granted. Within a fortnight of receiving notice of these conditions, the applicant must advertise the application. Any person or organisation who objects to the licence then has 20 days in which to lodge an objection with the Planning Tribunal, which

• in due course will hear and rule on them. If there are no objections, the Minister will grant a licence. A strong argument in favour of granting a licence for some continued sand extraction is that the eastern dunes are less ecologically sensitive than the western dunes, and the sand they yield is an important raw material for a major Christchurch manufacturer. The nearest deposit of a similar type of sand is at Kaikoura. Arguments against mining will be based on the unusual structure of the complete dune system, its fragile nature, and its unique ecological communities. Conservation groups will argue that although only about 3km of the 24km of dunes is involved in the mining application, removal of any sand from the system is unjustifiable. The dunes where mining has been going on formed between 500 and 1500 years ago, and are of considerable geomorphic interest,

both on a national and international scale, because this type of dune system, associated with mixed sand and gravel beaches, is quite rare on a world scale. Recent scientific studies, quoted in a Lands and Survey Department report, indicate that the process of dune formation is now complete, and that the sand supply to the shoreline is no longer growing. If the dunes are removed they will not be replaced by natural processes in the foreseeable future. In addition to this, the dunes at Kaitorete represent the last major outpost on the mainland of the native golden sand sedge, the pingao, a plant which is of considerable significance to the Maori people because of its traditional use in weaving. Another unusual feature of the Kaitorete flora is that its plant communities include several alpine species which are gowing almost to the high-water level, though they do not occur in the lowlands elsewhere in Canterbury. The Planning Tribunal will also have to consider the feelings of the Maori people, for whom the spit

and dune system have a high cultural value, because of their ancestral associations with the area. A large number of Maori archaeological sites which exist on the spit have not yet been properly documented and investigated. Under the Historic Places Act, this work will have to be done before the mining area can be extended. What is the Planning Tribunal likely to think about this? Some indication of its thinking may be gained from a decision it handed down in 1980 on an appeal concerning gravel mining in the Bay of Plenty: “Land use planning is enjoined to preserve the natural character of the coastal environment and to protect it from unnecessary development. But mineral resources must be taken from where they are found and often that is in the coastal environment.” The tribunal also noted that “because minerals (in the widest sense) can be won only where they occur, we do not subscribe to the view that there should be absolutely no quarrying, etc, in the coastal environment.”