Eketāhuna windfarm proposal awaiting Environment Court decision

Meridian has a wind farm at Te Āpiti and is awaiting an Environment Court decision on the proposal for one at Mt Munro.

It will be a nervous wait for Hastwell residents as the judge in the Environment Court deliberates on a case involving a proposed windfarm there.

John Maxwell, spokesman for the Hastwell/Mt Munro Protection Society, says the battle to have their say over the proposal by Meridian Energy to build a wind farm in the area, roughly 5km south of Eketāhuna, has felt at times to be a David versus Goliath situation.

Last month, the members got a chance to say their piece during hearings.

“[It was] a very daunting task for the eight local residents who fronted the battle line,” Maxwell says.

Experts from Meridian spoke at the hearing and the residents were able to cross-examine them.

Maxwell says the judge and two commissioners were kept busy making notes and only had to caution the residents a few times on proper courtroom procedure.

“The judge was very helpful in guiding us through this,” he says.

Once Meridian had given evidence, the locals, including a 12-year-old, were able to explain their personal ties to the project and how they saw the disruptive effects of the proposed wind farm project.

The battle against the wind farm has brought together the tight community, with those fighting coming from a range of backgrounds including social work, law and engineering.

Maxwell says there were a range of issues they still weren’t happy about, including traffic and dust on the ridge and he feels they were able to score some points during the hearing.

He says a focus of the group’s drive was strategies to mitigate the different effects.

One of Meridian’s proposed solutions was to plant trees to mitigate noise from the turbines, without considering that the trees would have to grow high enough to block the line-of-sight, which would take years, if not decades.

During construction, Meridian would have more than 300 delivery vehicles per day using State Highway 2 and Old Coach Road.

Maxwell says that during the application process, the group suggested other possible options that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make it better for the residents, such as using the rail line that runs close to the site.

The judge and two commissioners also made site visits, firstly to look over the proposed construction site and to the properties to get an idea of what the residents were talking about in terms of potential effects.

“I was very impressed with the efforts the judge made to ensure she understood all the issues,” Maxwell says.

He says the society did the best they could with the time and resources they had available.

Meridian was offered the opportunity to comment but declined due to the case still awaiting a decision from the Environment Court judge.