Water exports 'won’t affect’ national park

Press, 29 May 1985, Page 34

Water exports 'won’t affect’ national park

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington Recent criticism of the proposal to export fresh water from Deep Cove in Doubtful Sound in supertankers has drawn a response from the New Zealand co-ordinator of Triune Resources, Ltd, Mr Jock Lee.

He was commenting on statements against the project by the Nature Conservation Council (“The Press,” May 18) and the Centre for Resource Management at the University of Canterbury (“The Press,” May 22). Mr Lee said he was surprised at the assumptions that development for tourism in a national park such as Fiordland would have no or neglible impact on the environment.

Triune’s proposal was being attacked because water exports would spoil an environment that needed to be kept pristine for a great influx of tourists. But even the few tourists in Fiordland now had had

an environmental impact on Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, the two main points of public access, Mr Lee said.

Triune’s view was that not only did the project have a negligible impact on the biological environment but it would generate income for New Zealand and western Southland from the sale of water, and would also promote tourism in the region and for Nev/ Zealand.

“We are not just marketing water; we are also marketing the pure, clean, and natural environment from which it comes,” he said. “Because we will need to spend lots of money promoting our product and its environment, we will be putting Fiordland National Park on the international map as a great environment as well.

“We share exactly the same objective as the Nature Conservation Council and other bodies keen to protect the environment in Fiordland,” Mr Lee said.

If the environment were spoiled, that would hurt Triune’s sales and profits from marketing a healthy and natural product. Triune stood to lose more directly, and to lose more money than anyone else if that product was no longer healthy and natural. It was not true, as had been claimed, that eventually there would be 14 supertankers a week exporting water. That was neither planned nor contemplated. It was not true, as had been suggested, that Triune planned shore-based facilities. That also was neither planned nor contemplated. Indeed, the only shore-based facilities at Doubtful Sound were those associated with tourism. Mr Lee said that if World Heritage criteria were to be applied to Fiordland in the same manner as elsewhere in the world to create a World Heritage site, Triune’s proposals would not prevent Fiordland National Park from gaining that status.