Government’s ludicrous petroleum proposal

NZPAM website, 21 September 2016

The New Zealand government has just proposed to release half a million square kilometres of our land and sea to petroleum exploration.

The Taranaki Basin offer encompassed a third of the West Coast Marine Mammal Sanctuary, designated for the protection of the nearly extinct Maui’s Dolphin. The government says “this has been re-introduced due to commercial interest in the area”.

So rather than upholding New Zealand’s international obligation to protect endangered species and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the government does what corporations want – “providing a stable and predictable regime”.  

Victories, Resistance and Determination

The last few weeks and months have seen a series of encouraging wins on the environmental front:

What has climate change got to do with Anthrax, human rights or New Zealand?

Photo credits below

Who would have thought climate change could have brought on an anthrax outbreak? Yet that’s exactly what’s happened. This week, a young boy in the Yamal Peninsula of Russia died and many herders were sent for hospital checks, the culprit being that an anthrax outbreak broke loose from the thawing of an infected reindeer (or possibly human) corpse.

Media Release: Landfarming – Toxic waste disposal or recycling of rocks, mud and minerals?

Photos from TRC monitoring report on BTW Oeo landfarm, June 2014

Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand (PEPANZ) Chief Executive Cameron Madgwick said, “landfarming is nothing more than taking the ground-up rocks, mud and minerals left over from drilling activities and recycling them by placing them underneath the topsoil.”

Unfortunately, the facts tell a different story. As Climate Justice Taranaki Inc. (CJT) pointed out at the public hearings on the Proposed South Taranaki District Plan, the euphemistically termed ‘landfarming’ is actually the spreading of contaminated oil/gas wastes on farmland, and mostly on the coast in South Taranaki.

Media release: Landfarm or Contaminated Coastal Wasteland

Three coastal landfarms in South Taranaki consented for after 2009.

In the proposed South Taranaki District Plan, landfarming, the practice of spreading oil/gas wastes on farmlands, is a Permitted activity in the Rural Zone.

Climate Justice Taranaki, and other submitters, are strongly opposed to this, stating that landfarming should not be Permitted in the Rural Zone or anywhere else, especially on food producing land and within the Coastal Protection Area or catchments of Significant Waterbodies and Wetlands.

Media Release: Climate Justice Taranaki seek oil/gas prohibition in sensitive areas to protect human health and safety

This morning, Climate Justice Taranaki spoke at the Proposed South Taranaki District Plan hearings. Below were our key points:

Hundreds of scientific studies concerning oil and gas development have been conducted internationally in recent years. A vast majority (84 percent) of such research has revealed signs of health impacts on nearby communities. Notably, a detailed study in Colorado concluded that residents living within 800m from gas wells were subject to almost twice the cancer risk than those living beyond 800m.

Press release: District Council must protect our drinking water

At today’s public hearings on the Proposed South Taranaki District Plan, Climate Justice Taranaki argued that avoiding adverse effects on human drinking water sources must be added to the district plan.

“Under the proposed plan, the district council is not required to assess explicitly the potential adverse effects on drinking water sources, when considering resource consents. This is just not good enough. All water supplies, whether they’re for rural or urban communities, should be protected,” said Catherine Cheung of Climate Justice Taranaki.

This issue was first raised by Taranaki District Health Board (TDHB) in their submission on the proposed plan. The DHB also recommended that Schedule 5 on Significant Waterbodies be amended, to specifically ensure the provision and protection of human drinking water sources. Under the Health Act and the National Environmental Standards on Sources of Human Drinking Water, council, being the district’s main drinking-water supplier, has the responsibility to protect our drinking water sources.

“Our group fully supports the DHB’s recommendations. We were shocked when we read that both recommendations were rejected in Council Officers’ report,” continued Cheung.

Climate Justice Taranaki will be speaking again at subsequent hearing sessions concerning hazardous substances, energy and other issues, in late June.

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Read our hearings statement here.

Media coverage: Opunake and Coastal News, 17 June 2016 page 7

See maps of South Taranaki’s water supplies below, from South Taranaki Water Supply Monitoring Programme Annual Report 2014-2015.