Moreover, any hope of somehow delaying the consent process has been flatly rejected by council officers.
Given Wednesday's confirmation the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is to conduct a study into fracking (expected to be complete by year's end) plus the groundswell of opposition regarding the inherent risks to our most precious resource, water, you might think a responsible council could move to put fracking applications on hold until the results were in.
But no. As Iain Maxwell, HBRC's resource management group manager, explains, from an officer perspective public unease and official inquiries have no bearing on process; when TAG Oil's application comes in , they will have to consider it without undue delay.
Nor does public and official concern trigger the "special circumstances" clause of the RMA, Maxwell says. That clause is mainly for things that are "new and novel", which surprisingly fracking is not considered to be.
So it is unlikely, he says, council will find any grounds for public notification, let alone a moratorium.
Okay, but what about the risk? How can something that could, if things go wrong, end up polluting groundwater and/or aquifers in any way be considered to have "only minor effects"?
The answer is location-specific: every application has to be treated on its merits and, while no application has been received, Maxwell said the intended exploratory area (in and around Porangahau) appeared low risk in terms of the pollution of groundwater and no risk, as he understood it, for aquifers.
It might, he allowed, be a different story were TAG to drill on the Ruataniwha or Heretaunga plains. Which they may do, since their permits cover those areas.
Despite the HBRC plan, it seems to allow most things connected with fracking to happen by right. Drilling an oil well is a controlled activity, meaning it must be given consent while the discharge of drilling fluids is permitted. Maxwell stressed that contrary to appearances, he and his staff were geared up for the applications and confident they had every aspect covered.
His advice to a concerned public was to take the issue up with central government, as it is encouraging oil and gas exploration and issuing the lead permits. Councils, Maxwell says, are bound to strict process and cannot arbitrarily go against the law.
Maybe so. However, if officers cannot work outside their subjective but apparently-rigid constraints, where are the politicians and what are they doing to address this? Hiding behind the officers, bound to their policy and rules.
But it is councillors who set those policies and rules.
Since (for example) no specific rules around either injecting chemicals into the ground or causing disturbance in the substrata exist, councillors could immediately move to propose a plan change to make some. That could effectively mark time until the commissioner reports.
If they're worried about liability issues at this late stage, surely that lack of specific rules coupled with the commissioner's decision to investigate would more than cover their backsides against oil company suits.
But the Nats want to sell it, drill it, and bugger it, and the oil co's have amazingly deep pockets. And our local politicos plainly don't have the guts to stand up to them. Even if it means, as it could, given anything from earthquakes to faulty concreting of well casings, that the Bay's fertile fields are ruined forever.
That's the right of it.
Bruce Bisset is a freelance writer and poet.
