Govt 'will close Rotorua bores’

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 2

Govt 'will close Rotorua bores’

PA Wellington The Government is determined to carry on with its Rotorua bore-clos-ing measures, says the Minister of Energy, Mr Tizard. “Bore owners are, in several cases, now resorting to tactics by which they think they can evade the Government’s requirement that they close their bores,” Mr Tizard said yesterday. A crowd of almost 200 people met Ministry of Energy staff in Rotorua yesterday when they arrived at a private home to shut a geothermal bore.

A warrant was served on the property owner, Mr Paul Bradley, ordering closing of the bore, but Mr Bradley decided to contest it. Ministry officials did not get on to his property yesterday

with the equipment necessary to close the bore. Mr Tizard said many bore owners believed it was just a matter of resisting and gaining deferral of their bore’s closing until after the election. “This is on the basis of an entirely false hope that once the elections are over there will be some change in policy or weakening in the Government’s resolve.” Mr Tizard said there was no point in bore users writing to . him to appeal the closing of their bores, because the closings would not be stopped.

"Bore owners and users who are residents within the I.skm zone have had plenty of time to come to terms with the situation and make any special, exceptional circumstances and cases to me.”