ABLUNT warning has been delivered on the possible consequences of declining the application to leave the wreckage of the Rena on Astrolabe Reef.
Proposed conditions designed to monitor the marine environment could be lost if the application to leave the wreck on the reef was declined. Other conditions covered cultural concerns and financial guarantees to ensure the owners and insurers met fixed costs totalling about $715,000 a year plus any future unplanned contingencies arising from storms - totalling $16 million over 20 years.
The dilemma facing commissioners hearing the application was spelt out in closing submissions by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and the Rena's owner and insurer.
"Without consent, there will be no conditions, volunteered or otherwise," the applicant's lawyer, Matthew Casey QC, told the hearing panel.
He said he was not making a threat or holding a gun to the panel's head. "This is a simple statement of fact."
Evidence from the applicant, the Astrolabe Community Trust, ended the 21-day public hearing in Tauranga yesterday, with a decision from the independent hearings panel due mid to late December. In the meantime, the reef's no-go zone would remain in force.
Mr Casey said the application had been developed with input from Maori and recognition of their relationship with the reef, their kaitiaki role and of their mana.
He cited earlier expert evidence in which the owner could have simply walked away, once the Maritime Transport Act (MTA) situation was resolved, and treated the situation as beyond the reach of the Resource Management Act.
Mr Casey said the consent being sought was to abandon the wreck and not authorise the presently "contaminated site".
"That is, if consent is declined and the wreck removed as per accepted international standards, the contaminants will remain - and will do so without any conditions as to their management or monitoring," he said.
Mr Cooney said that if consent was declined, it did not follow that the wreck could be ordered to be removed. The council's powers to seek an enforcement order were restricted due to the limitation provisions in the MTA, which included the international Convention on the Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims.
It meant the council's powers to order the removal of the wreck could only be exercised if the wreck posed a hazard to navigation, which was no longer the case with the Rena.
"However, the owner can still be prosecuted under the Resource Management Act for any offence under that act."
Mr Cooney said that although the council did not want the panel to decide the application as though it had a gun to its head, it could not ignore the prospect of the community being left with an unmanaged situation on the reef if consent was declined.
The financial limitation in the MTA was $11 million, even though the Crown and Rena's owner and insurer had settled on $60 million.
Mr Cooney indicated that the costs described by the council regarding the application would come within the limitation which had already been spent.
Panel chairman Judge Gordon Whiting asked whether, from a technical point of view, the money had been spent.
"Yes," replied Mr Cooney. Removing the wreckage was not a viable option because of the "real risks" it would bring to the reef environment and salvors.