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Appeals against all three decisions on whether sand mining can or cannot be allowed to continue off Pakiri and Mangawhai beaches are to be consolidated and all heard at once by the Environment Court next year.
The move follows the decision last month by commissioners to refuse McCallum Brothers resource consent to continue to mine sand inshore off Pakiri, yet grant conditional consent for them to take sand from a mid-shore area north of Te Arai Point (MM, Nov 7).
A separate hearings panel had previously refused resource consent in May for offshore sand mining along the Pakiri and Mangawhai embayment.
An appeal by McCallum Bros against that first decision was due to be heard by the Environment Court in February, but following the latest inshore and mid-shore decisions, sand mining opponents Friends of Pakiri Beach requested that all three matters be considered together.
At a judicial conference on November 8, the court heard that all three decisions were being appealed by various parties, including McCallum Bros against the offshore and inshore refusals, and Friends of Pakiri Beach, Manuhiri Kaitiaki Charitable Trust and a raft of environmental organisations, community groups and individuals against the mid-shore consent. These are expected to include the Pakiri Te Whanau residents’ group, local Maori landowners, Ngati Wai, the Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society, the Environmental Defence Society and Forest & Bird.
All parties attending the judicial conference agreed that the time needed for three individual appeals would be significantly longer than for one consolidated hearing, and that a joint case would be far more efficient.
Speaking after the conference, Friends of Pakiri Beach spokesperson Damon Clapshaw said the decision to hear everything at the same time was sensible and “very good news”, as up to now, when each consent application was heard independently, the other applications were ignored.
“Now the true, overall position can be examined, including the application of cumulative effects,” he said. “Now the whole embayment and its coastal processes can be examined, for each application as well as cumulatively.
“This has been almost a two year journey of two different hearing panels, involving many elements and considerable time and expense by many. We very much look forward to resolution at the Environment Court.”
Clapshaw said the group was “tremendously encouraged” by the offhore and inshore decisions, which he said were a win for the environment, the Mangawhai Pakiri embayment and its local communities
and iwi.
“We hope to build on this momentum and new science, which is revealing the true reality of the dredging and its environmental effects,” he said. “Even more so in light of climate change and new enlightened sensibilities and responsibilities, to ensure that after some 100 years of continuous extraction, Pakiri may be freed of its dredging burden.”
However, Save Our Sands and Mangawhai Harbour Restoration Society spokesperson Ken Rayward said the decision to grant one consent and refuse another was confusing and concerning. He said could not understand why the panels decided sand mining was not acceptable in two areas, but was okay along a strip in between.
“How they can differentiate the environmental, ecological and cultural differences that would enable them to give approval to one and not the others … it beggars belief,” he said.
“The concerning part of it is that while the new mid-shore consent comes with a set of conditions, the primary consideration is that all mining would be carried out north of Te Arai Point, which is wonderful news for our friends at Pakiri, because they have borne the brunt of it for so long, but it refocuses everything on the Mangawhai end of the beach.
“Mangawhai would be coping with unprecedented level of mining that would be environmentally disastrous.”
However, he said everyone opposing sand mining was as strongly committed to fighting the practice as they ever had been.
The hearing has been set down to start in mid-May next year with Judge Jeff Smith presiding.
