Environment
Transmission Gully is filmed by an environmental criminalologist. David Williams reports
The promise was made in the early part of 2009.
Nick Smith, Environment Minister, moved the first reading of a bill that his government promised to introduce within 100 days after taking office. (It did so in an urgent manner.
The bill was intended to fix the Resource Management Act. Smith stated that decision-making should be faster, more precise, and cheaper.
A new Environment Protection Authority was established. It would oversee the oversight of boards of inquiry that were created to support major infrastructure projects such as highways. It was part of an economic stimulus package by the central government.
Smith had an important bottom line. However, I assure New Zealanders that this rebalancing will not lead to a decrease in environmental protection.
Events dominoed.
The Government announced that the Transmission Gully highway between Wellington, New Zealand, and the Kpiti Coast would be constructed, with four lanes. It measures 27 km long. It was opened last month. Media blitzes that are slightly bewildering.)
Waka Kotahi, Porirua City Council (NZ Transport Agency), and Transpower filed consent applications with the Environmental Protection Authority. In 2011, Transpower, Porirua City Council, and Waka Kotahi (NZ Transport Agent) filed consent applications to the Environmental Protection Authority. In June 2012, a Board of Inquiry was formed.
Two conditions were necessary for the protection and migration of indigenous fish near Paekkriki. One was for a steel I girder bridge to be built over Te Puka Stream. Another was for the replacement of a perched culvert that crosses Wainui Stream.
Mike Joy, a freshwater ecologist, was hired by the Kpiti Coast District Council during the Board of Inquiry hearings. Joy thought the conditions were great.
The stream realignment proposal was so extreme that it didn’t offer much chance for aquatic life. However, at least the Wainui catchment would be improved. Also, the current culvert migration barriers would be removed.
Joy, who lives in Paekkriki was shocked to learn that the conditions had been changed years later without any formal process and without consulting him. I was angry at the stream, but also at the wasteful use of money and time.
Did environmental protection promises be broken?
Sarah Monod de Froideville, a lecturer at Victoria University of Wellingtons Institute of Criminology, investigated. The paper contains detailed information about her conclusions. No Bridge over Troubled WaterCharles Louisson wrote this article, which was supported by the Environmental Law Initiative.
According to the pair, manipulative tactics were used in order to justify consent conditions changes. Transmission Gully’s poor funding model also led to a climate where there were shortcuts and tradeoffs. (The $850 million initial budget for the public-private partnership ballooned to $1.25 Billion.
The paper raises questions as to whether the soon-to be-replaced Resource Management Act is being followed up on and if the public bodies responsible for consent checks and balances are performing their duties.
Transmission Gullys case was handled by Friends of the Paekkriki Streams. This group did a lot of the digging into the opaque decisions.
Monod de Froideville states that it almost feels like the environment and the public are against it. If it comes to community groups like Friends of the Paekkriki Streams who have to ask the councils and NZTA questions about their responsibilities under the laws… then there is no hope.
The paper proposes that eco-centric principles be integrated into environmental laws. It also suggests the creation of an independent guardian, similar to Te Pou Tupua (which protects the Whanganui River), to ensure environmental protections.
Joy says: This scandal has exposed major flaws in New Zealand’s legislation and revealed the capture of New Zealand’s environmental regulators.
Greater Wellington Regional Council did no direct response to allegations that it had influenced the Board of Inquiry’s decision. Waka Kotahis, the consent holder, is responsible for ensuring compliance with conditions.
Andy Thackwray is the Waka Kotahi senior director of infrastructure delivery. He claims that Waka Kotahi used manipulative strategies in order to obtain a consent change.
Newsroom asked Environment Minister David Parker, if he was concerned about the ease with which environmental protections under Board of Inquiry were altered. He declined to answer. When asked if he could give assurances to the public that these failings would not happen again when the replacement bills for RMA are drafted, he declined to answer.
Te Puka Stream, an upper branch from Wainui Stream, is one of the branches. These branches join and flow along Queen Elizabeth Park until they reach the Paekkriki coast.
The catchment houses endangered and at-risk indigenous fish species such as red-finned bullies, banded Kopu, and red-finned Bullies. Some of these species, such long-finned eels and red-finned bullies, migrate to Tonga to lay their eggs. They then die.
When the young return from sea, there are problems such as culverts and pipelines.
Joy, a freshwater ecoologist, says sediment builds up behind Wainui Stream’s culvert. This means that water flows through the gravels at low flows.
In order to improve fish passage, experts agreed to replace the perched, culvert-like one where water drops above a lip. Te Puka was relocated and rebuilt with the I-girder bridge. This bridge attempted to simulate a natural stream to allow fish to find cover from predators.
To discover the change documents, officials used information requests.
It turns out that the Board of Inquiry’s work is complete once it has taken its decision.
Michelle Ward, general manager of climate and land at the Environmental Protection Authority, stated that Transmission Gully consents are administered by the Greater Wellington Regional Council, which monitors and enforces compliance.
(Another Board of Inquiry voted in favor of changes to the regional councils’ freshwater plan in 2011. The Victoria University paper states that this set the precedent that future development decisions would be as favorable as possible.
The board however stated: [regional council]It is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed methods, but it is not the responsibility of the authority to reinvent or challenge objectives and benchmarks established in consent conditions.
Monod de Froideville stated that although management plans were adaptable to deal with uncertainty, consent conditions were red lights.
A complex and expensive project was made more complicated by the 2012 Government’s directive to NZTA to use a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to lower Transmission Gully’s cost.
A February 2013 review of the project revealed that using a consented scheme to procure a PPP contract led to unavoidable cost changes. According to the review, a PPP model is not guaranteed to be cost-effective.
The affordability threshold for the schemes was also set too low. Many of the 355 designations and consent conditions were reexamined.
Gerry Brownlee (National list MP) was Transport Minister from October 2011 to October 2014. He said that contractor bids were commercial decisions made after thorough consideration. They were not pressured to lower their prices.
He did not know if it was legal to overturn the Board of Inquiry consent terms.
He said Transmission Gully was a great project overall. The local communities will reap the immense benefits.
Waka Kotahi applied for consent conditions to be changed to the Greater Wellington Regional Council in October 2013. The approval process took less than one month.
Fish ladders were proposed as a way to allow fish passage through Wainui stream. The condition now stated that the culvert must be replaced or modified. This is subject to approval and possible new consents.
The council determined that adverse effects would not be more than minor and the changes were administratively not warranted.
Monod de Froideville said that this was a crucial error. Instead, the proposed modifications are material and substantive changes that will affect the conditions as they were to be applied as the outcome measures.
Greater Wellington also missed the obvious: the Board of Inquiry, BOI, considered replacing the culvert in a mitigation plan for devastation to the Te Puka stream.
The proposed changes were shared by iwi groups, territorial authorities, but not the Department of Conservation or other submitters who raised concerns about passage of fish.
It is not known whether native fish such as eels, short-jaw Kokopu, koaro, and torrent fish could use fish ramps in Wainui Stream. Friends of Paekkriki Streams highlighted that the culvert is often empty as the stream becomes clogged with gravel.
Joy, a freshwater ecoologist, states that bridges are more important than culverts. All of this was part of my original evidence, and the BOI accepted the decision to build bridges. It should not be changed, secretly, after the fact.
Joy said that installing fish ladders is akin to building a 10m-high wall at Lambton Quay and placing step ladders on each side. It is a chokepoint in a fishy rush hour and a place where predators can pick off migrating species.
Changes to the Te Puka Stream Bridge to an arched design were covered in a December 2016 memo by consultants Boffa miskell, acting as the joint-venture group. A subsequent in general accordance assessment was made six months later by the regional council. (Boffa miskell did not respond to a request to comment.
The memos focused on the new seismic requirements. This change would result in a shorter construction timeline and a smaller construction footprint. The regional councils only once mentioned fish passage as the primary driver of the original bridge design.
The new bridge design was considered to be within the scope and did not significantly alter the intensity or character of the Transmission Gully project. This is in contrast with its impact on the Wainui catchment.
Monod de Froideville said it so clearly that I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Her paper notes that this is similar to allowing any kind of change so long as the impact is less than the magnitude of impacts from a multiyear construction of a highway through complex terrain.
The regional council was given legal advice that it should be more flexible and tolerant in its assessments. The Board of Inquiry anticipated changes and approved adaptive management for the complex project. According to the Victoria University paper, this advice is confusing.
Cannons Creek was approximately 20km from the location of the agreed mitigation to offset the impact caused by the new bridge. The Board of Inquiry report mentions the removal of the perched conduit, which was amended in 2013.
Monod de Froideville writes that in a sense, approval for the new design was inevitable.
Waka Kotahi was criticized by the paper for using manipulative tactics in order to justify the changes. The transport agency mentioned the promise made by its ecologists at the Board of Inquiry hearing about repairing the perched culvert. However, it stated that this could be accomplished in other ways such as a fish ladder.
Monod de Froideville stated that it was clear manipulation. The correction was actually an agreement to take down the culvert, which is a well-known fish barrier, and to open the streams’ upper reaches as aqua habitat.
She believes individual decisions can look logical and understandable. However, the language used can be persuasive. When you look at the Board of Inquiry’s decisions and some submissions together, you see a completely different picture. A trend towards environmental destruction.
There are many layers to governance. There are many decisions to be made, and they are all kept secret behind closed doors.
Joy, the freshwater ecologist concludes: It’s a waste of everyone’s time if you don’t learn from it.
As mentioned earlier, Waka Kotahis senior management Thackwray refutes allegations of manipulation. In a statement, he stated that the Te Puka bridge modification was made to improve constructability.
The ecological impacts were evaluated and fully mitigated in the context of the change process. The Wainui River culvert must still be de-perched. The timing change for de-perching culverts was made to minimize delays for the traveling public.
Alistair Cross is the general manager of environment management for Greater Wellington. He said that if Waka Kotahi’s consent conditions are not met, it will consider the appropriate compliance or enforcement response.
The contract to construct Transmission Gully was awarded by a consortium called Wellington Gateway Partnership. It also received equity and debt funding from the Crown entity Accident Compensation Corporation. Two of these consortium companies are owned by CPB, a construction company, and CIMIC finance arm Pacific Partnerships in Australia.
Fiona Tyndall is CIMICs executive manager of corporate affairs, communications and corporate affairs.
Greater Wellingtons Cross claims that the council works closely and positively alongside the Department of Conservation. Perhaps this is a small light that can help indigenous fish.
Natasha Ryburn is the DoC director for planning permissions, land and environmental protection. She says that once it became aware of the changes, it began to work with relevant parties to find good biodiversity outcomes.
This engagement was not limited to one structure. There were many issues. This engagement has been positive.
Ryburn reports that Waka Kotahi had proposed additional mitigation work to the catchment. DoC received comments in February on their proposals. This included initial comments regarding fish passage mitigation. As Waka Kotahi creates the mitigation package, we will continue to engage.
Time will tell if it is too little or too late.
The Transmission Gully story, which Joy, Monod deFroideville and Louisson highlight, paints a familiar picture.
A diffuse situation of organized irresponsibility in which neither the ineffectual agencies or councils nor the corporations are responsible for environmental harms. A message of balance that seems favors economic considerations over endangered animals, their shrinking habitat or the public good. An inability to recognize the natural world’s intrinsic right for existence.
Land Information New Zealand published a self flagellating report in 2019 as the Government prepared for an announcement to end the controversial tenure review system that ended Crown pastoral leases. It was described by many as an opaque, unfair system that was more concerned with results than protecting the environment. The results are clear for all to see.
Forest & Bird, a conservation lobby group, released a report a year later accusing local and region councils of being corrupt. being weakWhen it came to protecting native habitat. Newsrooms’ investigation into how councils handle discharges to water revealed glaring inconsistencies.
Let’s go back to 2009 when Environment Minister Smith made promising environmental protections in Parliament. Jeanette Fitzgerald Fitzsimons, the Green Party co-leader, stood to answer the amendment bills first reading.
She pointed out that the Resource Management Acts are intended to allow economic development without compromising the environment as long as natural resource use is sustainable.
The damage caused by polluting discharges and inappropriate coastal development over the 18 years before that was a gradual, incremental loss that put at risk native species and ecosystems.
Fitzsimons stated that Smith’s bill distorted the Act to favor big developers over the environment. She wanted to know who spoke for the trees, endangered animals, water quality, and for the forests as well as the sea.
We need to make the Resource Management Act more environmentally friendly than it is to ensure less.