March 12, 2024
Opponents ready for new seabed mining bout
A Taranaki environmentalist says the Australian-owned Transtasman Resources will seemingly stop at nothing to get its hands on rare earth minerals off the region’s coast.
The Environment Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera tomorrow for the first of three hearings to reconsider an application for a 20-year consent to mine and process iron sand from the seabed off south Taranaki.
It’s opposed by Ngati Ruanui, Nga Rauru, Te Ohu Kaimoana and a number of environmental and fishing industry groups.
The company won a consent in 2016, but it was overturned on appeal because the EPA applied the wrong legal test.
Tuhi -Ao Emily Bailey from Climate Justice Taranaki says the company has spent almost $50 million in its bid to get access to the source of vanadium, a rare earth mineral used to toughen steel.
“It will trash the environment. We’ve got reefs out there. It’s the second most diverse marine mammal area of the planet. We’ve got penguins and seabirds. We’ve got people out there fishing commercially and recreationally. We’re not going to give that up so one company can make some more money,” she says.
Ms Bailey says she’s concerned if the company fails at this step it will come back under the Government’s new fast track consenting law, where the decision is made by a small group of ministers.