Hearing panel to tour river

After one day of the Environment Court hearing called to consider whether a hydroelectric scheme should be built on the Wairau River, the hearing has been adjourned for two weeks so the judge and three commissioners appointed can consider the evidence.

Tomorrow Judge Gordon Whiting and commissioners Alex Sutherland, John Mills and Helen Beaumont will begin a two-day familiarisation tour of the river.

TrustPower and appellants to the August 2008 decision by a Marlborough District Council-appointed hearing panel put their heads together at the end of yesterday's session at the Heartland Hotel Marlborough in Blenheim to agree on points of interest to be visited.

Judge Whiting said affected landowners should be at their property to point out likely impacts of the scheme.

Yesterday's hearing – to consider whether the council-appointed panel's August 2008 decision to grant TrustPower resource consent to build the hydro scheme should stand – opened with all parties offering an overview of their case.

Appealing the decision are Save the Wairau, representing 550 members, New Zealand Fish & Game Councils, Wairau Valley landowners John and Joan McLauchlan, represented by Blenheim lawyer David Clarke, Alison Parr and husband Ian Rogers and Pauline Doyle and the Marlborough Freshwater Anglers Club.

Ormond Aquaculture Ltd and related company New Zealand Clearwater Crayfish, as well as Jet Boating New Zealand Incorporated, reached eleventh-hour agreements with TrustPower and withdrew.

The Department of Conservation also abandoned its appeal in September after reaching a deal with TrustPower.

Counsel for Marlborough District Council, John Maassen, said the council backed its commissioners' decision to grant resource consent to TrustPower and regarded the company's technical evidence as reliable.

Sustainable management could involve "tragic choices" but the Marlborough region must contribute to New Zealand's renewable energy targets, Mr Maassen said.

The council would not cross-examine technical or lay witnesses with the exception of Fish & Game evaluative witness Robin Dellamore, who is to present new evidence.

Fish & Game lawyer Marie Baker told the court this was "the wrong scheme on the wrong river" as it would cause downstream effects below where water was returned to the river, particularly flow fluctuations, which would affect wildlife.

Lawyer for Save the Wairau, Michael Hardy-Jones, said the generating capacity of the proposed scheme was about half of the increase in demand experienced in New Zealand each year.

The court had been asked to sanction a dramatic adverse effect on 47 kilometres of the river for an increase in generation which, by the time the scheme was built, would be inconsequential, he said.

Save the Wairau would call evidence in the areas of avifauna (birdlife), natural character and sediment transport.

Ms Parr said she had not been informed of the opportunity to present an opening statement at yesterday's hearing but said her stance and that of the McLauchlans remained: "We will not sell or lease our land to TrustPower or allow access of any kind."

Counsel for the McLauchlans, David Clark, said 36 per cent of the proposed scheme's total output would be produced on his clients' land.

Without the McLauchlans, TrustPower's only option would be a reduced scheme with water returning to the river above their land, he said.

TrustPower's plans for the river were futile without the McLauchlans' consent, Mr Clark said.