Energy plans jeopardise snapper population

Snapper could be off the menu at your local takeaway shop if Crest Energy's plan to build a tidal power station in the Kaipara Harbour goes ahead, according to Maori Party MP Hone Harawira.

Mr Harawira says 90 percent of New Zealand's snapper nursery comes from the Kaipara harbour.

"There's no way you can put up a sign to stop them swimming through.

"The Kaipara Harbour is the food basket for the people of the Kaipara and this project will destroy this asset."

The Environment Court made a positive recommendation to Conservation Minister Tim Groser on a proposal from Crest Energy to generate electricity from the harbour earlier this year.

This could see the country's largest harbour providing power to 250,000 homes within 10 years.

Mr Harawira says he will discuss his concerns over fish stocks with Prime Minister John Key because the Kaipara Harbour is in his territory.

"Anyone who likes snapper should be concerned, Maori and Pakeha," Mr Harawira says. "Where in the world has this technology been tested commercially and why test it in one of the world's greatest fisheries?"

Kaipara iwi Te Uri o Hau Settlement Trust sees the move as being a problem.

Trust chairman Russell Kemp says each turbine is the size of an average three-bedroom house.

"The ownership of the Kaipara seabed is still largely contestable in Te Uri o Hau eyes. We will be excluded from our own taonga - the Kaipara - at the expense of what can best be described as a mad scientist's experiment when the benefits are not conclusive."

At a public meeting, held at Naumai Marae near the Northland settlement of
Ruawai earlier last year, Crest marine consultants Venus and Gowing said they, including NIWA and Conservation Department staff, had assured the Environment Court the power generation project would not harm orca and other whales or disturb the spawning beds that provide 98 percent of New Zealand snapper.

However the Environment Court said in its interim decision two weeks ago that the Crest Energy proposal needed further work, mainly to satisfy concerns about the turbines interfering with the critically endangered Maui's dolphin and the important snapper fishery on the west coast of the North Island.

- © Fairfax NZ News