KEY POINTS:
A big hurdle to a new underwater home in Northland for the rusting old navy frigate Canterbury is likely to be removed today.
The Department of Conservation (DOC), which had opposed a plan to sink the 3000-tonne frigate in Deep Water Cove, Cape Brett, was to meet the Bay of Islands Trust today and said there was a good chance the sinking plan would be approved.
That would mean the Northland Regional Council had only to grant a resource consent and without an objection from DOC, the trust said there was nothing to stop the consent being approved.
Trust spokesman Kelly Weeds said if DOC withdrew its objection then the council granted the consent, Canterbury could be towed to Opua from the Devonport Naval Base in Auckland before Christmas.
The 36-year-old Leander class frigate was taken out of service in March last year and sold to the Bay of Islands Trust, which planned to sink it as a dive attraction in Deep Water Cove.
However, DOC said the underwater wreck could harm the fragile marine environment, including the bottlenose dolphins which used the cove as a resting area.
Now the trust said it had hoped all DOC's objections had been satisfied by a stringent set of rules to protect the marine environment.
Mr Weeds said the old ship would spend at least six months in Opua being stripped and cleaned before it was sunk.
Mr Weeds said the trust had about $50,000 available but would raise about $400,000 from the sale of souvenirs and bits and spares from the ship.
The balance of the $600,000 sinking cost would come from corporate sponsorship and marketing, such as selling the right to push the button to sink the ship.
He said the trust was "pretty close" to an agreement with DOC.
The trust had talked with DOC about using a small area of the cove as a boat lane to and from the wreck site.
They had also provided a code of conduct to DOC to protect the dolphins and the marine environment.
DOC Bay of Islands area manager John Beachman said he was confident DOC and the trust would agree on conditions.
"They are putting Canterbury into an area of extraordinarily high conservation value," Mr Beachman said.
He said after talking with the trust DOC now had little concern.
"If they are going to work to Bio Security New Zealand standards we will be happy to withdraw (the objection)," Mr Beachman said.
Mr Weeds said the navy had paid an estimated $300,000 to prepare and tow Canterbury's sister ship, Wellington, to the capital for sinking but it would not pay to tow Canterbury to the Bay of Islands.
Navy spokeswoman Lieutenant Commander Barbara Cassin, said the navy made it clear early in the disposal process it would not be involved in the costs.
Another organisation, the Tutukaka Coast Promotions Society said it already had resource consent and would sink the ship in Ngunguru, just south of Tutukaka, if the Bay of Islands site did not go ahead.
Another Leander class frigate, the former HMNZS Waikato, was sunk as a dive attraction in Ngunguru, off Northland, in 2000.
Two other ships sent to the bottom off Northland were former navy oceanographic research ship Tui - sunk just north of Tutukaka in 1999 - and the Rainbow Warrior, sunk in Matauri Bay in 1987, two years after it was blown up in Auckland by French saboteurs.
- NZPA
