CRP Marine Consent hearing starts today
25 September 2014
Chatham Rock Phosphate today launched its application to the Environmental Protection Authority for a marine consent to
extract rock phosphate nodules from the seabed on the Chatham Rise, 450 km from New Zealand.
CRP, a New Zealand NZAX listed company, has spent four years and nearly $30 million to research its proposals to mine
1.5 million tonnes for use on New Zealand farms and export markets.
Counsel James Winchester, in his opening submissions, said the research has found effects are confined to a small area.
He said the key conclusions from an enormous body of evidence were:
· The area is not significant for fishing or spawning
· There is expert consensus the effects on fish and fishing are low
· Modelling of sediment plume shows the effects will be confined and the main impact on benthic (seabed) organisms will
be within the mining blocks. There will not be material adverse effects on fish, eggs or larvae over a wider area, with
suspended solids quickly returning to normal between mining cycles.
· Risks to marine mammals and seabirds from a single vessel and the mining operation are low and can be appropriately
managed.
· There will be significant and irreversible effects on the benthic environment where mining occurs, but these are
unlikely to have flow-on consequences for the food web of the Chatham Rise. While the impact included permanent effects
on stony corals, these are present throughout the Exclusive Economic Zone and CRP is proposing significant mitigation.
CRP’s proposed mitigation includes mining exclusion areas covering one fifth of the marine consent area to include
sensitive and important seabed features and benthic communities, and trials to create areas of hard substrate to enable
recolonisation of stony corals and other species.
“It is submitted that the greatest impacts and risks to the fishing industry and the fish that they rely on arise from
their own unregulated bottom trawling, rather than a very small amount of seabed disturbance in an areas that is not
important for fishing or spawning.”
Mr Winchester began his submissions saying phosphate, a natural mineral, is as essential to life as water, oxygen and
carbon. It cannot be manufactured, there is no synthetic substitute and New Zealand has no on-land sources, so all
phosphate is imported, much from politically unstable parts of North Africa.
“The availability of a high quality, low cadmium local source of rock phosphate on the Chatham Rise makes this a
strategic resource of national significance.”
He said the proposed dredging process is one of the most environmentally benign forms of mining practised anywhere in
the world. No overburden removal is required and no chemicals are introduced to the environment. Damage is minimal and
restricted almost entirely to the mined area.
In contrast the environmental costs and potential damage of using an alternative supply of phosphate involves removing
vast quantities of overburden, containing much higher levels of cadmium and - shipped from the other side of the world -
leaving a large carbon footprint.
Mr Winchester said CRP is proposing a suite of conditions to deal with risks and effects including an adaptive
management approach.
ends