Environmental effects not enough to rule out Waikato power upgrade

Photo / Mark Mitchell

Transpower's $824 million North Island power grid upgrade will cause adverse effects to the Waikato landscape but they are not enough to outweigh the benefit of the project, a board of inquiry said today.

The board, set up when the last Government called in the project last year, has approved the upgrade in a draft decision released today.

Interested parties have 20 days in which to respond before the board adjudicates on a final decision.

The proposal involves building a 190km overhead transmission line from Whakamaru north of Taupo to a switching station in South Auckland, as well as some underground cabling.

It has sparked fury from Waikato and South Auckland farmers. The board considered more than 1200 submissions when it conducted a hearing over 72 days last year.

It accepted that with 314 properties affected there would be significant social effects, as well as environmental ones.

Protection of some outstanding natural landscapes at Lake Karapiro and Maungatautari qualified as being of natural importance, it noted.

"Yet even though the protection of them from inappropriate development is to be recognised and provided for, that is not an absolute goal to be achieved at all costs," the board, chaired by Judge David Sheppard.

Transpower had done what it could to mitigate the effects by systematic and professional route selection and through the use of monopoles near the Lake Karapiro crossing, the board said.

It accepted Transpower's submission that the grid upgrade was needed because the existing transmission system would not be adequate to meet demand in the short or longer term -- and that it should be capable of transmission at 400 kilovolts.

It said the project would more fully achieve the sustainable management purpose of the Resource Management Act, even considering its failure to give some areas full protection from inappropriate development and its "considerable actual and potential adverse effects."

One of the most controversial aspects of the inquiry concerned the human health effects from exposure to extremely low frequency electric and magnetic fields. About 960 submissions were on this subject.

The board considered expert witnesses from both sides of the argument, before concluding that there would not be significant risk to human health from the grid upgrade, taking into account proposed conditions to the resource consents it was granting.

It found there was weak epidemiological evidence of an association between childhood leukaemia and long term exposure to extremely low-frequency electric and magnetic fields above a certain level, but there was no evidence it was causal.

"The board does not consider that this weak epidemiological evidence of association is a reason for declining the designations or refusing the resource consents."

It said the exposure limit guidelines that Transpower was following were those that the Ministry of Health recommended.

Transpower welcomed the draft decision, saying several issues with electricity supply in the upper North Island in recent years illustrated the need for increased capacity.

Auckland has been hit by power failures.

"We will work hard to establish effective partnerships with communities and respectful and fair relationships with affected landowners," chief executive Patrick Strange said.

"The local benefits of this project include the creation of additional jobs and investment in the wider Waikato region, but we also recognise the major impact the project has on individual landowners and communities."

- NZPA