NZ: Eco groups criticise Chatham Rock plans for seabed mining

The Environmental Defence Society says Chatham Rock’s plan to mine phosphate off the seabed threatens seabirds and marine mammals.

NZ City

Environmental lobbyists have criticised plans by Chatham Rock Phosphate to mitigate the impact of its proposal to mine phosphate nodules from the Chatham Rise seabed, saying they wouldn’t diminish the project’s risk.

On the second day of a two-month hearing on Chatham Rock’s marine consent application, the Environmental Defence Society told the five-member decision-making committee it should be declined because the mining is likely to degrade the seabed environment and threaten endangered seabirds and marine mammals without strong enough mitigation measures in place.

Allowing the project to proceed would cut across other legislation which aimed to protect seabed ecosystems in benthic protection areas, and cumulative effects of the project need to be taken into account, EDS counsel Rob Enright said.

“The benthic protection areas are mitigation for the fishing that takes place as an existing activity, because they are obviously no-go areas for dredging purposes. If you allow mining to take place in those BPA areas, you are usurping that mitigation,” he said.

“This proposal would open more than half of the benthic protection areas to seabed mining, significantly reducing the area of this habitat type protected from human impact and that cumulative effect is significant.”

Chatham Rock, which has urged the committee to consider the economic benefits of locally sourced fertiliser, is proposing to mine phosphate nodules at depths of up to 450 metres, initially within its 820 square kilometre mining permit area for five years. After that it would widen its activity to 5,207 sq km for up to a further 30 years.

The Royal Forest and Bird Society also criticised the company’s risk management processes as being inadequate, and said that the project posed a risk to the Chatham Island taiko, a seabird on the verge of extinction.

Forest and Bird counsel Peter Anderson questioned the economic benefit of the project, saying the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research’s model wasn’t explained, and that the proposal was at risk from a significant change in the price of phosphate.

“Forest and Bird also considers that the economics of the project as set out in the CRP evidence is overly optimistic and should not be relied on,” he said.