November 26, 2013
Drilling starts off Raglan coast
Protests on land and sea have failed to stop Texan oil company Anadarko drilling for oil off the Waikato coast.
Ignoring a flotilla of protest boats, its ship the Noble Bob Douglas spudded the first well about 2.30 this morning in 1500 metres of water 100 nautical miles west of Raglan.
Greenpeace says the flotilla will now return to shore and the action will move to the High Court, where it has filed papers seeking a judicial review of the process the Environmental Protection Agency followed in permitting the company to drill in the Taranaki basin.
Angeline Greensill, who organised a protest at Raglan on Saturday that attacted about 700 people, says Maori are waking up to the Government’s mining policies.
She says they take seriously companies accessing their land or threatening their beaches.
"There’s real interest in conserving what we have, and the government has passed so many laws about the exclusive economic zone around our country, but they've secured it for the exploitation of resources rather than sustainably managing things for the marine environment and for the future," Ms Greensill says.
She says if anything goes wrong, the programme will be a huge liability for the country rather than the cash cow the John Key Government sees it as.
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