Cypress/Happy Valley News No. 8
What stage are we at? In this newsletter I’ll do my best to summarise the current situation.
We lost our appeal to the Environment Court. This meant Solid Energy (SE) has permission to go ahead with the Cypress Mine. However Forest & Bird has appealed to the High Court on matters of law. Unfortunately this does not stop SE developing the mine up to the time a decision is made in a month or two.
Up until last week there was nothing happening in Happy Valley, but roading could start anytime. We’ve heard that staff are being recruited to shift Powelliphanta ‘patrickensis’snails from Happy Valley, the site of the first pit. Its unlikely that kiwi will be moved in the near future as their breeding season begins around now. May next year is a more likely date.
The Department of Conservation (DOC) made a deal with SE. This means it has accepted that the mine will go ahead and virtually commits DOC to helping shift kiwi and snails and turning a blind eye to the snails that will inevitably be left behind and crushed during mining. In exchange, SE agreed to hand over a couple of small parcels of land of much lower conservation value to DOC.
Meanwhile SE is preparing to remove the summit ridge of Mt Augustus, the only home of Powelliphanta ‘Augustus’. DOC has told SE that moving it is ‘not an option’, since there is no equivalent habitat available. This is no worry to SE which has a habit of mining through its environmental constraints. So far it has wiped out one of the two tiny colonies of P ‘Augustus’ and built a road over the best part of the other. SE believes it has the right to kill kiwi, snails or any other protected flora or fauna under the Coal Mines Act 1979. This is the old act under which its Stockton mining license was granted. To make matters more complicated, the Environment Court has given SE permission to kill up to 10 roa/great Spotted kiwi and an unspecified number of ‘patrickensis’ snails under the Resource Management Act despite these species being "absolutely protected" under the Wildlife Act. So if you, like me, had illusions that our national bird is protected, we need to adjust to reality.
What are the NGOs Doing?
A few weeks ago Save Happy Valley group held a protest at DOCs head office in Wellington over DOC’s shameful collaboration with SE. Although the protest was small and received no media coverage it was a very significant event. To my knowledge, environmentalists have never protested DOC before apart from a tiny 2-person BCG effort earlier this year in Westport. SHV has also held a number of creative protests at SE head office in Christchurch which have made the TV news.
Forest & Bird, NZ’s biggest green NGO, has been busy with court and media work. The latest issue of its Journal has an excellent article on Powelliphanta, illustrating with photos how little of the ‘Augustus’ snail’s habitat remains on the mountain top. As well as the High Court action, F&B and Buller Conservation Group are defending themselves against a SLAPPS suit from SE. This is a corporate-dirty-tricks tactic whereby SE ties up NGOs in costly litigation. SE is sueing the two groups for $380,000 for costs from the Environment Court case.
Buller Conservation Group has been busy with these court actions and keeping tabs on things locally. A couple of months ago we pulled out of SE’s ‘consultative group’ after SE’s chief executive officer Don Elder broke his solemn promise not to mine the Skyline Ridge - an iconic landscape feature. The Christchurch Press carried the story in which we described SE as ‘totally and absolutely untrustworthy’.
BCG has gone global via an Ecological Internet ALERT, asking Nippon Steel and Mitsubishi Chemical not to buy SE’s coal because of its atrocious environmental record and intention to kill more snails and destroy more kiwi habitat. These Japanese mega-corps take the lions share of SE coal exports. We need to meet with their top people in Aotearoa and explain that we want SE to abandon Cypress.
Ngakawau Riverwatch, which is not opposed to a Cypress Mine, reached agreement with SE prior to the Environment Court case. I’m told the water quality standards agree to are precedent-setting for mining. This means that if a Cypress Mine goes ahead, polluted mine water should be treated to near-drinking-water standards. However, this does not mean SE will comply. With the help of its faithful friend West Coast Regional Council, SE is likely to continue with its policy of pollution-by-dilution. This involves storing polluted water in a dam until it rains heavily - then bleeding it into the flood waters. Even if SE goes over-limit, it can rely on regional council to cover for it. The heavily polluted (dead?) Ngakawau River will inevitably become more polluted, since SE is opening new pits all the time with no effective water treatment.
Ngati Waewae. Along with F&B and BCG, Ngati Waewae went to the Environment Court opposing a Cypress Mine. Waewae was responsible for getting a court session held in Westport where kaumatua Te Whe Weepu gave evidence. (Most of the case was held in Christchurch). The broad sweep of Waewae's objections to mining on the plateau, past, present and future, is very valuable to the overall campaign.
Greenpeace was an original submitter on Cypress, highlighting climate change. With its global reach, GP will be very useful in pressuring SE’s global customers to stop buying coal. I understand Greenpeace Japan played a major role in stopping Mitsubishi buying woodchip sourced from Tasmania’s old-growth forests.
Solid Energy’s Kamikaze Style. Remember Timberlands West Coast, the out-of-control rainforest logger that government finally chopped off at the knees? SE is acting just the same as its fellow state-owned-enterprise. It hasn’t learned the basic lesson that a corporate cannot go head to head with the global environmental movement and survive. SE continues along the same disastrous course - aggressive, deceitful, egotistical. Smarter corporates like Comalco (Save The Kakapo) and CHH (Project Crimson) have invested millions in green projects and turned their images around. If it wanted to, SE could get all the sand, silt and coal fines out of the Ngakawau River within months using a series of simple sediment dams. It could sacrifice the relatively small amount of coal under the summit ridge of Mt Augustus and send a signal that it is not really a full-on planet trasher. But no, Don Elder and the team at the top seem dedicated to their very own rush to destruction.
On the labour front its a similar story. Mine workers want a 5% pay rise for this year and next year and parity between mines. The union says Don Elder recently gave himself a 10% rise - $50,000 added to his $500,000 salary. A miner I know said one good thing about us greenies is we force SE to reveal the value of the coal the workers are producing for the company. For example, there’s supposed to be $180m worth under the Skyline Ridge. Prices for coking coals have doubled in the last two years. Currently there are 200 mine workers suspended around the country. On the Coast they’ve been as activist as us, with pickets at work sites, and a march up the main street.
Where to from here?
SHV is planning to get more people up to the coal plateau, to experience this remarkable place, hear kiwi, get photos for a campaign poster, and monitor SE’s moves. This is so important for building the campaign - it certainly was a key factor saving West Coast rainforests. F&B/BCG will have court actions in Christchurch for those able to attend and give valuable moral support. BCG has asked Environment Defence Society to investigate a court injunction against SE, stopping it from killing ‘absolutely protected’ species with its Cypress plans. Sen Bob Brown of Tasmania is currently conducting such a case and has been successful at the first hurdle. I know Ngakawau Riverwatch will continue to pressure SE over the shocking state of rivers and creeks in their area and the fact that SE has disturbed the catchments of Kerr Str and Jones Ck despite having no water right to do so.
I’m told SE cannot shift kiwi or snails without a permit from the Director General of Conservation and this has not yet been granted. So we need to put lots of pressure on Hugh Logan and PM Helen Clark. It’d be good to get a promise from the PM prior to the election that kiwi habitat cannot be destroyed for a Cypress Mine and the Wildlife Act will be given precedence over the Coal Mines Act 1979 and the Resource Management Act so our national bird can have some security.
Isn’t it ridiculous, the government spending millions of dollars saving kiwi all around the country while at the same time helping destroy prime kiwi habitat on the Buller coal plateau.
