Editorial: Electrical storms brew

OPINION: The sight of police officers on points duty in Auckland this week again underlined the vulnerability of the country's biggest city to the state of power lines between it and the South Waikato hydro village of Whakamaru.

Regardless of what led to the fire on farmer Steve Meier's Matangi property on Monday afternoon, the upshot was a major loss of power and a soap-opera standoff lasting several hours involving Transpower staff. Bad enough thousands of people should have been left without power as a consequence of a preventable fire, even worse that the time to repair it was delayed as a consequence of a dispute. Auckland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Michael Barnett was on television the next morning repeating concerns that his city's international reputation was taking a hammering. He costed the damage as in the "hundreds of millions of dollars". At the same time, the recordings of Mr Meier's heated rants about Transpower were being broadcast on radio.

It would be simplistic to suggest Mr Meier was the man who kept Auckland in the dark this week. The issue is down to Transpower's management of its relationship with a man who demands, as he is entitled to do, the company sticks to the letter of the Electricity Act. The Waikato Times fell foul of Mr Meier in 2007 when he complained about an advertisement which gave what he said was insufficient notice of Transpower plans to carry out maintenance on transmission lines above his property. In May the following year another standoff developed as Transpower battled to get on to Mr Meier's land to do maintenance work. Transpower chief executive Patrick Strange described his company's relationship with Mr Meier as "probably the most difficult in the country", but that is not a satisfactory reason for this week's incidents.

Potentially even more concerning was a subsequent warning from Waikato Federated Farmers president Stew Wadey that there could be similar confrontations with other farmers on the route of the proposed 400Kv line, which has a 2013 switch-on date. Mr Wadey said he would not be surprised if landowners refused to allow contractors on their properties for the new project.

The $824 million plan, using pylons 46 metres high – 19m higher than those in use now – involves ongoing communication with more than 330 land owners. Dr Strange earlier said 70 per cent of the land owners in the likely path of the pylons had accepted one-off payments. But negotiation deals have still to be settled with a further 100 landowners and the new line will be only as strong as its weakest link. If Mr Wadey is right, Transpower could find itself dealing with other farmers who are of a similar mind to Mr Meier, and there will be similar incidents to what happened in Matangi.

That will be as expensive as it will be unacceptable. Transpower must ensure it does everything by the book. It does not appear to have done so in Mr Meier's case.

- © Fairfax NZ News