Wairau River battle begins

Energy generation company TrustPower's right to build a $275 million hydro-electricity scheme on the Wairau River will be determined at an Environment Court hearing which began at Blenheim's Heartland Hotel this morning.

The hearing was called as the result of six parties appealing the Marlborough District Council's decision last year to grant TrustPower resource consent to build a 72-megawatt scheme on the Wairau River. This would divert water from the Wairau down 46 kilometres of canals through six power stations, including the Branch River station, then return it to the river.

Organisations appealing against the decision have potentially been whittled back to Save the Wairau and Nelson Marlborough Fish & Game.

A deal between the Department of Conservation and TrustPower in September means DOC will no longer give evidence at the hearing.

Ormond Aquaculture, related company Clearwater Crayfish and Jetboating New Zealand have also been negotiating last-minute agreements with the power company, with outcomes unclear at the end of last week.

Affected landowners, John and Joan McLauchlan and Alison Parr and Ian Rogers, will also be heard.

Fish & Game Nelson Marlborough manager, Neil Deans, describes the case as "a David and Goliath scenario".

TrustPower community relations manager Graeme Purches is confident of a win, with the company having invested four years and $4m building its case, which will be presented by law firm Russell McVeagh and 32 expert witnesses. But he says a risk is that the court might set conditions which could render the scheme uneconomic.

Mr Purches claims to understand the passion with which Save the Wairau and Fish & Game oppose TrustPower, but believes that the organisations do not fully understand that the way the Resource Management Act works is, "We give a little, you take a little, for an outcome we can all live with.

"If you sit with your head in the sand and say, `This is our view. We won't change, but will fight to the bitter end,' you will cost ratepayers a lot of money and everyone a lot of time."

In October last year, Mr Purches told the Blenheim South Rotary Club that it could cost ratepayers $1m if an Environment Court appeal was called. But last week, the Marlborough District Council confirmed that it had budgeted $100,000 for the case.

Mr Purches believes parties opposing his company's plans for the Wairau will have trouble working within the judicial Environment Court setting, where only facts and evidence will be heard and all statements require backup evidence.

A point of difference with the original hearing will be the ability of all parties to cross-examine expert witnesses through their lawyer, he says.

What Save the Wairau lacks in cash it makes up for in passion and local knowledge, says Blenheim lawyer and outdoorsman Mike Hardy-Jones, who will act for the organisation's 550 members on a partially pro-bono basis.

"TrustPower seems to believe that it has spent so much money that it can't lose," Mr Hardy-Jones says. "I have a feeling that they can lose."

Save the Wairau relies on fundraising and subscriptions, as well as $40,000 legal aid from the Ministry for the Environment to fund its appeal.

Mr Hardy-Jones rejects a suggestion from Mr Purches that legal aid could be misdirected to campaigning, saying that the money is strictly for legal and expert witness fees and must be closely accounted for.

He concedes that those appealing against the scheme face a difficult task, "but I think the case is winnable because when those making the decision look at the issues and pare back experts' knowledge, they will recognise that there are effects [of the proposed hydro scheme] which are greater than minor and contrary to the Wairau Awatere Resource Management Plan".

The Marlborough District Council-appointed self-confessed "lay panel", which last year issued TrustPower with resource consent to build the Wairau hydro scheme, was not equipped to make such a major decision, the organisation's deputy chairman, Ron Tannock, told The Marlborough Express.

The Environment Court judge and commissioners would be much better qualified to expertly consider the facts and factors, he said.

The thorn in Fish & Game's side has been the Department of Conservation's withdrawal from the case in September, when the two parties had been preparing a joint case, including sharing expert witnesses.

"What got my goat was when DOC agreed to this confidential and unilateral decision without reference to us," Mr Deans says.

"This leaves our witnesses in an awkward position and there is concern that some may be contaminated."

Mr Deans feels that "DOC's been diddled" with a deal that has short-changed conservation values, compared with conditions set at the original hearing, which required that the power company pay to control black-fronted-tern predators.

Over the 35-year consent period, TrustPower agreed to support a $3m black-fronted-tern protection plan; only about $86,000 a year, capped at $200,000 a year, he says.

The money will mostly be taken up with monitoring, and if populations decline, little will be left to spend, and it will be hard to prove a direct link with the hydro scheme.

There is a marginal gain in TrustPower agreeing to minimum flows over the black-fronted-tern nesting season between October and January, but Fish & Game is more interested in the January-April months, when water levels tend to be especially low, he says.

Asked if TrustPower won the case, when it plans to start work on building the scheme, Mr Purches says original plans to be generating electricity from the Wairau by next year are obviously no longer possible.

Once consent is granted, the company will do its sums, with no guarantees that construction will start straightaway.

However, TrustPower is aware that farmers wanting to irrigate from the company's canals need surety, which adds urgency, "as we would not want to end up costing them money".

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