DOC critics deplore deals on projects
The Department of Conservation (DOC) is under fire over $22 million of deals it has made with power companies.
DOC yesterday released details of 12 financial agreements, worth $22.23m, with developers in the past seven years after requests by The Press under the Official Information Act.
All of the deals, except one $105,000 agreement, were with power companies.
The department says the deals address environmental impacts and show its “practical and open” approach.
Critics described the deals as outrageous and accused the department of not doing enough to protect the environment.
In February, DOC was accused of having its silence bought over a $175,000 deal with Meridian Energy regarding the power company’s Project Hayes wind farm in Otago.
Prime Minister John Key ordered an inquiry and the Government told the department to be more open about publicising such deals.
Of the agreements summarised yesterday the details of which DOC said had already been made public the biggest were with Mighty River Power ($9.5m into a trust for Waikato River hydro schemes) and Meridian ($7.25m to date over Waitaki River hydro schemes).
Projects agreed under the deals include habitat protection and pest management.
Four agreements netted more than $1m each the Lake Waikaremoana hydro scheme in Gisborne (Genesis Energy); the Wairakei geothermal power station at Taupo (Contact Energy) and two agreements on the Tongariro power scheme in the central North Island (Genesis).
DOC policy general manager Doris Johnston said the agreements showed the department’s practical and open response to conservation concerns.
“If the department can get an agreement to fund acceptable work to help mitigate the environmental impacts of a development, we will do so,” she said.
Dunedin conservationist Dave Witherow called the agreements “utterly outrageous”.
“If they were so proud of them, why did they have to be dragged out of them?” he said.
“If you prefer this course, which is what DOC does, then New Zealand will end up like all these other countries over-populated and environmentally rooted, with DOC left to look after the mummified remnants.”
He described DOC as “feeble” and said it did not object to any significant project.
Upland Landscape Protection Society member Ewan Carr said DOC was failing in its role as an environmental safeguard.
“It has abandoned its obligation by receiving cheques on the quiet,” he said.
Conservation Minister Tim Groser said it was “entirely appropriate” for DOC to use the agreements.
The Mighty River Power deal, in particular, was a “huge” sum that would allow an ecological trust to distribute “considerable” money for projects over many years.
DOC senior management had been told to be more open about the deals to avoid the perception that “money [was] passing under the table for something the public doesn’t understand”, he said.
Green Party conservation spokeswoman Metiria Turei called for DOC to be more transparent.
“When it gets money, particularly from state-owned power companies, it needs to tell the public so there isn’t the sense they have been paid off to keep quiet,” she said.
Johnston said the 12 agreements were “recent examples” of a wider range of agreements and arrangements that it entered into as a normal part of the Resource Management Act process.
By DAVID WILLIAMS — The Press
5 May 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
Some possibly related stories:
The copyright of this article is owned by the author or publisher indicated. Its availability here constitutes a "fair use" as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law as well as in similar "fair dealing" exceptions of the copyright laws of other nations, as part of National Wind Watch's effort to advance understanding of the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development. For more information, click here.
