Residents emphatically oppose waste-to-energy plant – survey
A Waimate District Council survey asking residents if they support a proposed $350 million waste-to-energy plant has received more than 700 responses with an emphatic majority stating their opposition.
The result of the survey, which ran from November 5 to 19, showed 94% of respondents were against the proposal.
The council received 735 responses to the question: “Do you support a waste-to-energy plant within the Waimate District?” Of those, 697 (94.8%) answered no, 28 (3.4%) answered yes, and 10 were undecided.
The survey was launched on November 5, the same day councillors agreed that mayor Craig Rowley should write a letter to the Government requesting it remove the proposal from South Island Resource Recovery Limited (SIRRL) for a waste-to-energy plant from the list of projects to be fast-tracked.
The proposal by SIRRL involved building a $350m plant, known as Project Kea, on a 15-hectare site in Glenavy.
At the time of launching the survey, a council spokesperson said should the bill be passed, the fast-track process would be managed by the Environmental Protection Authority and an expert panel.
“Council may be given the opportunity to provide comments to the panel on the proposal, and would like to reflect the community’s sentiment in our comments, should we be provided the opportunity.
“Council wants to ensure that all residents, those in support and those opposed to the proposal, get to have their say.”
At a council meeting on Tuesday, around 40 people attended a public forum session.
Members of Why Waste Waimate, a group opposing SIRRL’s proposal, presented a document to the council that contained six petitions with a total of 3801 signatures against the plant.
The council acknowledged receipt of the petitions, and Rowley accepted them on behalf of the council and thanked petitioners for their efforts in engaging with the community.
In October, the Government released a list of 149 projects to be fast tracked. SIRRL’s Project Kea was one of those.
Rowley said the council did not want the project included in the Fast-track Approvals Bill, which was designed to speed up resource consents and get big projects built, saying its inclusion meant the Waimate community would lose the chance to have a say.
“It is important the community voices its views on the project,” Rowley said.
Councillors, during the November 5 meeting, also agreed the council could not support the company’s proposal in its current form, given a lack of information.
“It is disappointing that when the project was first proposed, the company behind it were very intent on having open discussions with the community, but that has not been the case,” he said.