Sustainable Otakiri raises $35,000 to lodge water bottling appeal in High Court

Iwi and local residents' appeals against the expansion of the Otakiri Springs bottling plant are now expected to go to the High Court. Photo / Charlotte Jones

The fight for Otakiri's water continues, with both iwi and residents filing appeals in the High Court.

Right on deadline, Sustainable Otakiri surpassed its fundraising target of $35,000 for its legal fight and delivered its appeal to the Rotorua High Court yesterday morning.

Te Runanga o Ngati Awa delivered its appeal to the court on Friday.

Both groups are appealing the decision of the Environment Court to allow Creswell NZ, a subsidiary of Chinese company Nongfu Spring, the right to increase the amount of groundwater taken by the Otakiri bottling plant for commercial purposes to an annual allocation of 1.1 million cubic metres.

Sustainable Otakiri chairwoman Maureen O'Kane said her group of protesters were "over the moon" at the support New Zealand had shown them through donations and words of encouragement.

"It is clear New Zealand wants us to take this fight further.

"They give you a very short timeframe in which to lodge an appeal; we technically had just
15 working days but because of the Christmas break that was extended. We got our decision the day after White Island erupted and people were still reeling from that, and then of course there was Christmas and New Year's. So, a difficult time for us to have these serious conversations with New Zealand so they understand exactly what is happening in their backyards."

O'Kane said the group was fighting to ensure that all resource consents with such strong public interest were always publicly notified.

The resource consents granted by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council and the Whakatane District Council to increase operations at Otakiri Springs were not publicly notified.
Creswell NZ applied under a variation of consent but Sustainable Otakiri believes this was wrong because many activities that would take place under the planned expansion would be new to the site.

"To go from eight truck movements per day to 202, to go from a 1340sq m building to adding on an additional 16,800sq m building; it's a really, really big jump in scale for there to be no public consultation," O'Kane said.

The fight for Otakiri's water continues, with both iwi and residents filing appeals in the High Court. Photo / File

"A good portion of the plant is dedicated to the manufacture of plastic bottles, which has never occurred on site. They've never had the plastic smelter, they've never had the 16-metre-high chimney stack, they've never had 30,000 litre LPG and diesel tanks, they've never had refueling stations on site. This is now an industrial site.

"I've been advised that in the Napier/Hastings district that their council put in a directive that all water bottling plants in their district will be publicly notified.

"So, it's not something our council can't do without Government directive, but because there isn't Government directive, they can pick and choose the path that they take."

O'Kane said she expected a hearing in the High Court would not happen for at least another 12 months.

The next step for Sustainable Otakiri is to apply for environmental legal assistance during the next funding round in April. The group has already been denied funding twice.

"The Government only dishes out $600,000 a year to the ELA fund in comparison to the $30 million it spends enticing overseas businesses to come out here and set up," said O'Kane.

"Because they are so poorly funded it does depend how many cases there are and who is at most need as to whether we get funding or not."

The group is also in talks with Tauranga City Council to see if it would consider helping to fund the group the same way Christchurch City Council funded Awa Action Group.

O'Kane said the Tauranga council was concerned about how it could effectively plan for rates and infrastructure when it was not notified about resource consents such as this.
If the expansion goes ahead it will see one truck every three minutes making the journey from Otakiri to the Port of Tauranga.

"Where is the benefit to New Zealand when they don't pay GST on incoming material, they don't pay GST on exports and because it's a foreign owned model it means the profits aren't kept in New Zealand, so where is the benefit to New Zealand?"

Read more: Bay of Plenty water fight to go to High Court
"Any benefit is very, very low. When you look at all the activities we could be doing with that water, is water bottling what we really want?"

Te Runanga o Ngati Awa appeal Environment Court decision

Te Runanga o Ngati Awa has also lodged an appeal in the High Court against the Environment Court's decision due to "ongoing concerns" about the proposed expansion.
Te Runanga o Ngati Awa manahautu (CEO) Leonie Simpson said the runanga was extremely concerned about the effects on te mauri o te wai (the spiritual essence of the water) and the ability of Ngati Awa to exercise kaitiakitanga (guardianship) of the water.
"As kaitiaki and tangata whenua we must be included in decisions about our taonga and on issues that affect us in our rohe," Simpson said.