Press Release - Waiareka Valley Preservation Society

1 May 2007

Holcim’s application omits key details

Today Rodney Jones, the Spokesman of the Waiareka Valley Preservation Society, commented:

The application filed by Holcim on April 20 to construct a cement plant at Weston, just outside of Oamaru, still omits many of the key details the community needs to make an informed decision.

The life of this project will be 50 years. Holcim should have provided full details on how the plant will evolve over the next 50 years. By filing an incomplete application now, they are leaving many significant issues open ended. They are ensuring that the community in the future will have to deal with further inevitable developments on the proposed sites. For the next 50 years we will have to battle to preserve our quality of life.

The Ngapara coal mine has a life of 15 years. What happens after that? The Holcim application notes that the options beyond 15 years include transporting coal from a new or existing mine, or backloading from the Port of Timaru. Shouldn’t those consents be included or at the very least be forecast in some detail in this application, given that Ngapara coal has a defined finite life?

There are up to 72 truck movements a day associated with transporting the 200,000 tonnes of coal this plant will require. After 15 years will these truck movements come down SH1 and through Oamaru? Or will they come by train? Will we have an extra 2-3 coal trains a day lumbering through the centre of Oamaru on top of the planned two daily trains included in the application? All told, this could add up to 8-10 additional daily train movements per day.

Transit New Zealand has already expressed concern about the delays associated with trains carrying cement crossing SH1 on , with these cement trains already expected to incur 148 minutes of delay to traffic a week. An additional 2-3 coal trains could increase the delay to over 300-360 minutes – or over five to six hours per week. This is an unacceptable delay on the South Island’s key highway. Yet nowhere in their application do Holcim address this issue.

Holcim do not address what will happen to the Weston plant when it ceases operations in 50 years. As Westport is finding out, 50 years is very short life for an industrial plant. After all, Tiwai Point is already 35 years old.

Holcim is nomadic capital. They abandoned the Dunedin site at Burnside in 1988 and left it to decay as a contaminated site. Now they are preparing to abandon Westport. What will happen to the current plant, waste and environmental damage at Westport’s Cape Foulwind? Nowhere in their application do Holcim address this.

Given their appalling record of operating and abandoning cement plants, including international degradation of sites, Holcim should be forced to address how they propose to eventually to restore the Weston site, and if necessary pay a substantial bond to ensure compliance.

Will our children and grandchildren be left with an environmental eyesore that will be left abandoned for a few centuries? Is this the environmental legacy we want to leave in Weston and the Waiareka Valley?

Waiareka Valley Preservation Society, Inc

ENDS

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