8 February,
2008 - Environment Minister Trevor Mallard
will tomorrow publicly notify two renewable
energy development proposals that he has
called in, and encourages anyone with an
interest in them to make a submission.
Unison Networks Limited
has proposed a 34-turbine wind farm near
the Te Waka Range in Hawke’s Bay, and Contact
Energy Limited wants to develop a new geothermal
power station in an area known as Te Mihi,
near Taupo.
Late last year, Trevor
Mallard announced his intention to call
in both proposed schemes using his powers
under section 141A of the Resource Management
Act due to their national significance.
"I consider these
proposals to be of national significance
because they are relevant to New Zealand's
international obligations to the global
environment, in terms of the Kyoto Protocol.
If approved the proposed projects will contribute
to the New Zealand Energy Strategy target
of having 90 per cent of our electricity
generation as renewable energy by 2025.
"Also, in the case
of the Te Mihi geothermal project, geothermal
systems are a natural resource that is limited
to a relatively small area of New Zealand
and the proposal involves a significant
use of this limited resource."
Trevor Mallard formally
called the proposals in in late January,
and people have four weeks to make submissions.
The public notification advertisements will
appear in newspapers tomorrow.
"The submission
process gives people the opportunity to
express their views about these projects.
Anyone can make a submission, whether you
are in favour or opposed to these proposals,"
Trevor Mallard said.
As part of the call-in
process, Trevor Mallard has directed that
an independent Board of Inquiry consider
the Te Mihi applications, and he has referred
the Unison Te Waka proposal to the Environment
Court. The board of inquiry and the court
make the final decisions on each project.
Submissions on both
proposals must be received by 5pm, 7 March
2008. Submission forms can be obtained from
local councils in Hawke’s Bay and Taupo,
and from the Ministry for the Environment
website www.mfe.govt.nz/rma/call-in-temihi/
or www.mfe.govt.nz/rma/call-in-tewaka/
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Councils to receive
help to speed up RMA processes
4 February, 2008
Councils are to receive assistance to improve
their consent processing performance by
focusing on best practice, Environment Minister
Trevor Mallard said today.
A review of a number
of councils that were not processing Resource
Management Act (RMA) applications within
a suitable time frame showed that poor quality
applications, some internal procedural issues
and staffing shortages were the main factors
causing delays.
"Some councils
have already taken advantage of the Targeted
Assistance Programme provided by the Ministry
for the Environment. By working with staff
and analysing and reviewing data, this programme
reviews the current resource consent process
and recommends ways of improving performance
and practice," Environment Minister
Trevor Mallard said.
"The Making Good
Decisions programme is another tool available
for councils to improve their practice for
hearings. This provides the accreditation
required for chairs and panel members of
any resource consent, plan change and designation
hearings."
Since January 2005 this
programme has accredited 932 individuals
and provided update seminars to 570 of those
already accredited.
"Various RMA forums,
and a website (www.qualityplanning.org.nz/)
which provides best practice guidance on
consent processing, monitoring, enforcement,
plan development and plan topics are among
other initiatives the Ministry for the Environment
will use to assist councils to improve their
performance.
"All councils reviewed
will be asked to report back to the ministry
on their performance in the next six months,"
Trevor Mallard said.
The Ministry for the
Environment initially reviewed consent processing
in a representative sample of five local
authorities – Taupo District Council, Manukau
City Council, Waimakariri District Council,
Kaipara District Council and Franklin District
Council - to get an idea of general practices.
The ministry then reviewed Auckland City
Council, Tauranga City Council, Grey District
Council, Timaru District Council, Westland
District Council and Kaikoura District Council
which processed less than their sixty per
cent of applications on time.
Trevor Mallard says
the review was worthwhile.
"The ministry needed
to research the challenges facing councils
in meeting the statutory timeframes. Some
councils achieved 100 per cent processing
on time, and that is the target for all
councils to aim for."
"Several councils
reported 'lost time' obtaining and coordinating
the outputs from different software systems
across the council. Those problems may be
no worse than typically found in large organisations,
but there is some scope for time saving
if these systems were improved.
The reports can be viewed
at http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/rma/review-consent-processing-perfor...
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Ministry stands by decision
to drop conclusion chapter
Media release: 11 February
2008
The Ministry for the Environment is releasing
the draft conclusions chapter of the state
of the environment report Environment New
Zealand 2007 to provide transparency around
its content.
Todd Krieble, General
Manager Reporting and Communications, says
the Ministry stands by its decision not
to have a conclusions chapter in the report.
“The decision was made
to let the facts in the report speak for
themselves. The substance of the draft conclusions
chapter is contained in the Minister’s foreword
to the report, the separate summary document,
and throughout the report itself.”
“The pressures on the
environment from intensification of land
use and agriculture are widely covered in
the report. They were highlighted in a summary
of key findings when the report was released,
and reiterated publicly at the launch event
in January,” Mr Krieble said.
“We made it clear then,
and I will make it clear now, that the report
identifies some serious pressures on New
Zealand’s environment. Land use intensification,
both urban and rural, is one of those, along
with household consumption, transport, energy
use and waste.”
Mr Krieble says the
original project scope for Environment New
Zealand 2007 did not include a conclusions
chapter. Well into the process, the team
preparing the report drafted a conclusions
chapter to help readers understand its complex
content.
But a peer review of
the draft conclusions chapter by central
government agencies and regional councils
made clear that it qualitative content was
not in line with the factual nature of the
report, he says.
“A cardinal sin of environmental
reporting is to let comment and qualitative
analysis go further than can be supported
by the facts.”
Within three weeks of
the peer review, a decision was made by
the Ministry to take out the conclusions
chapter. This happened well before the report
was shown to Cabinet in October.
“No Ministers saw the
draft conclusions chapter. Nor was it distributed
to any group associated with the agricultural
sector. It was sent to the Ministry of Agriculture
and Forestry’s peer reviewers. From March
2007, early drafts of all chapters were
given to peer reviewers, solely to check
that the Ministry’s use of facts supplied
to it was correct. That is standard professional
reporting practice,” said Mr Krieble.
“The Ministry looks
forward to the discussion about what the
facts in this report mean for New Zealand’s
environmental management.”
The draft conclusions
chapter is available at: http://www.mfe.govt.nz/state/reporting/enz07-draft-conclusion-chapter.html
