Judge holds off on hydro ruling

An Environment Court hearing to decide whether TrustPower's resource consent to build a power station in the Wairau Valley is "futile" because landowners will not allow access to their land has been adjourned until November.

Wairau Valley farmers John and Joan McLauchlan have refused to let TrustPower's proposed 48km canal cross their land.

Following submissions from the McLauchlans' lawyer, David Clark, Environment Court judge Gordon Whiting said he was not prepared to rule on the issue of futility before the scheduled five-week substantive Environment Court hearing in November.

Final resource consent for TrustPower's $280 million hydro electricity scheme was granted in August last year by the Marlborough District Council after the longest resource consent hearing in New Zealand history. Opponents of the scheme have appealed the consent to the Environment Court.

The proposed scheme included a 48km canal along the southern slope of Wairau Valley above the township, with five generators that would create up to 72MW of power.

John and Joan McLauchlan have 520 hectares of land directly in the path of TrustPower's planned canal and 34 per cent of the scheme's total output would be affected if the canal could not pass over their land.

The couple lodged an appeal in the Environment Court for the resource consent to be revoked on the basis it was futile for the project to go ahead because access to their land would not be granted.

Mr Clark said after yesterday's hearing that he was "not unhappy" with the outcome.

He said the best-case scenario for the McLauchlans would be that the court agreed TrustPower's consent was futile because access could not be gained to the land.

A "second-best" outcome would be a reduction of the consent from 10 years to five or even two.

In his submissions, Mr Clark said if TrustPower did not gain access to the McLauchlans' land, the only option to TrustPower was to have a "substantially reduced" scheme.

This scheme would not be part of TrustPower's resource consent application and the scheme would need to be significantly redesigned, Mr Clark said.

After the hearing, Mrs McLauchlan said she had not expected a ruling yesterday.

"We have been going for six years now so what's another six months."

Pauline Doyle, whose land would have an emergency spillway built across it, said the threat that she would be forced to sell her land would hang over her for at least another six months because of the delay.

She filed an affidavit to support the McLauchlans.

However, she said the brief hearing raised valuable information.

Wairau Valley Action Inc co-convener Suzanne Busch said TrustPower had said they would apply for authority to forcibly take land for the project.

She said the action group was disappointed the McLauchlans still faced the threat of compulsory acquisition but were pleased to learn from TrustPower that their signed agreements with landowners covered just 60 per cent of the holdings required.

- The Marlborough Express