Hobbs keeps hands off coal power decision

The Government is staying well away from plans for a coal-fired power station on the Northland coast, side-stepping the controversy in an election year.

Pressure was building on Environment Minister Marian Hobbs to use special powers under the Resource Management Act to "call in" the $300 million Marsden B power project on the shores of Bream Bay.

Environmentalists said it was unacceptable to refire the station with coal just as a major climate change treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, came into force.

Mighty River Power's plan to refire the station, built to run on oil but shut in the 1970s because it was too expensive, has dismayed residents, who were expected to have swamped the Northland Regional Council with up to 2000 submissions by close-off today.

Ms Hobbs yesterday declined to take the plan out of local councils' hands, which she can do when a project is deemed to be of "national significance".

Her announcement yesterday came after the Whangarei District Council voted down a motion to ask the minister to use the call-in.

"I am able to call in applications of national significance, but in this case I do not think it is appropriate," Ms Hobbs said.

The issue is unlikely to come before the Government until well after the election, as the initial resource consent process is set to take most of this year.

Even if the plan gets through the council - and the project is almost certain to end up in the Environment Court - it will face a "carbon tax" under Kyoto.

That is because the Government's climate change policy comes into force in 2007, when carbon taxes will be imposed on major polluters. Mighty River Power wants the station operational by 2009.

Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel said he was "disappointed" Ms Hobbs had left the issue up to local councils.

"It is concerning that the Government does not perceive a near doubling of our carbon emissions from coal as an issue of national significance."

The organisation was discussing whether three protesters, into their ninth day on the roof of the 60m metre high station, would come down. They scaled the walls last week.

Whangarei District councillor Robin Lieffering said Marsden B was the biggest environmental issue the community had faced in recent times, and questioned whether local people had the resources to fight it. "Why should local people raise $150,000 to fight this," she said.

But Northland Regional Council chairman Mark Farnsworth, whose council is charged with deciding on the consent for Marsden B, said the move to get Ms Hobbs to intervene was "ill advised".

It was always unlikely the Government would remove the power of local representatives to make the decision in an election year.

Mighty River Power spokesman Neil Williams said the company was happy to go through any regulatory process.