McCallum Bros challenge Auckland Council decision to refuse sand mining resource consent application

KEN RAYWARD

Save Our Sands (SOS)

29 May, 2022

This is why McCallum Bros are wrong in taking this action.

Having had the first of their three 35 year-long sand mining consent applications refused by Auckland Council, McCallum Bros have announced they are to challenge the decision in the Environment Court, the company stating the case was complex, and needed to be progressed to the Environment Court, where experts can analyse all the evidence.

Mr McCallum failed to mention that for this first hearing he engaged the largest possible array of environmental expert witnesses to support his first far shore mining consent application, an application considered the easiest to win of their three applications given its furthest distance from shore.

In spite of this, Auckland Council agreed with the recommendation from the highly experienced and respected hearing commissioners, that the McCallum application was found to be lacking in providing acceptable evidence that the coastal environment, precautionary reasoning, customary rights for Maori and their connected coastal processes, were not being recognised, understood or applied, and refused the McCallum mining application.

It must be acknowledged this decision was enabled by over a year of consideration by the council and commissioners, plus the undertaking of two new seabed scan surveys to identify seabed damage resulting from current mining activities. This process, monitored by joint expert scientific experts, resulting in the refusal of the consent application.

Mr McCallum further states that their research indicates the company’s sand extraction in the Mangawhai-Pakiri region is sustainable and has minimal impact on the coastal environment. Not true! The Mangawhai-Pakiri coast is recognised as a closed embayment – no new sand enters the area – so the sand volumes are finite and every dredge-full taken can only be replaced by infill from the coastline, destroying both the seabed ecosystems and coastline bird habitats. Hardly a sustainable environment. If Mr McCallum believes his statement, he has been seriously misinformed.

McCallum Bros also states that their mining of the Mangawhai-Pakiri beaches is essential for the growth of the Auckland construction market. Not so. The Kaipara Harbour provides evidence to this with two respected sand mining operations currently supplying quality sand to the same construction market as McCallum, operating in a sustainable area with an abundance of replenishable, sustainable sand, with already-consented sand extraction volumes sufficient to take up any market demands as a result of McCallum not operating in the sand supply market.

The trade-off, for extreme and irreversible coastal environment destruction to this treasured coast, loved by all New Zealanders, for the sole purpose of financial gain by a privately owned organisation, does not warrant any serious consideration at any level. And certainly not at the Environment Court!