Accord settles decades-long feud over river management

Henry Pryor says iwi have a duty to support the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill because of the hundreds of jobs it creates for local workers. Photo / Alan Gibson

Bay of Plenty iwi have all but ended their decades-long argument with the paper mill that turned their river into the Black Drain.

Ngati Awa, Ngati Rangitihi and Ngati Tuwharetoa have had a shaky relationship with the owners of the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill in Kawerau, which has been discharging effluent into the Tarawera River.

But yesterday, they aimed to turn over a new leaf, signing a memorandum of understanding with Carter Holt Harvey and Norske Skog to make a commitment to clean up the river together.

Ngati Rangitihi spokesman Henry Pryor said the tribes and the owners were the closest they had ever been in the 58 years the mill had been in operation, and expected real changes as the result of joint environmental projects.

He said it was important that the community, including iwi, supported the mill because it created hundreds of jobs for people in the Matata and Kawerau regions.

Mill manager Wu Khoo said the memorandum created a formal discussion outside the Resource Management Act process.

The groups were expected to form a committee within eight weeks to address the effects of mill activities on the surrounding environment.

Mr Khoo said there were many contributing factors to the discoloration of the river - especially run-off from farms - so it was important to include everyone in its clean-up.

Members of Ngati Awa had previously called for the mill to be shut down altogether.

But spokesman Pouroto Ngaropo said yesterday that the only way forward was to work with the companies and encourage new technology to deal with the 150 million litres of used water that was pumped into the river daily.

"The river is a living entity which represents the spiritual, cultural and physical life of our ancestors. If it is unwell, so are we.

"Now that we can speak face-to-face [with the owners], we can try and get it clean again. It may take 50 years, but the platform has been created," Mr Ngaropo said.

In October, the mill was given permission to continue discharging effluent into the river, as well as gas and dust emissions, for another 25 years.

One of the conditions of its consent was improving consultation with the local iwi.

It is seeking consent for restoration of its boiler.

Ngati Rangitihi members are among those who opposed permission for the mill to upgrade the boiler. But iwi leaders said yesterday that Maori who opposed the mill were now in the minority.

Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty said the memorandum was an important step in recognising what the iwi had lost through pollution of the river.

She acknowledged that air and water quality on the Tarawera River had improved over the past decade, but said this was the result of legal challenges and political activism, not the work of the mill.

Ms Delahunty said pragmatic environmental solutions needed to follow the signing of the memorandum.

"Any formal agreement that acknowledges these groups [as] tangata whenua is important. But there have been many, many years of talks. If the company was determined to reduce its pollution it would not have applied for 25 years' resource consent to continue polluting the river."