The Aggregate and Quarry Association (AQA) represents those producing most of the country’s aggregate – crushed rock (or stone) and sand. Its CEO Wayne Scott, says Kiwis need these resources and to trust the processes that allow them to be accessed…
Consider this. To enable us to travel, live and work, New Zealand uses on average 1kg of aggregate each hour for every one of us.
This goes mostly into roads, commercial and home construction, much of it via concrete. Each new home takes around 250 tonnes of aggregate for its foundations and pathways alone.
There are more than 1,000 active commercial quarries and sand operations around New Zealand.
Opponents of a quarry development or a sand extraction project often suggest such operations should go further afield. The problem is the price of aggregate doubles after 30km of travel from its source and then keeps rising with each extra kilometre; that’s partly why Auckland housing is more expensive. It carts in much of the aggregate it needs from Waikato and Northland. This is why it’s crucial that aggregates are sourced as close as possible to where they are needed.
Manufactured sand is available and some proclaim it is often environmentally better than extracted sand. Yes, there is now some rock being turned into sand in New Zealand and it is helping meet increasing demand. But it either requires huge investment in increasingly precious electricity capacity or it burns a lot of diesel and creates more emissions.
In contrast, for decades Auckland received half its sand needs from offshore sites by barge. One of those sources was abandoned last year after facing significant opposition and legal battles.
A new site up the coast and further offshore is now attracting even more vociferous opposition than its predecessor. That proposal is to take 8 million cubic metres of sand over a 35-year period, up to 250,000 tonnes a year, the equivalent of around 70 ten tonne truckloads. Or three house builds per day.
Ten kilometres north, the port company operating the Marsden Point wharf has been dredging the harbour for a century. That’s because the sand returns here like it does everywhere. In the last 20 years alone, more than 2 million cubic metres has been extracted. Last September the Environment Court approved a major expansion to accommodate larger container vessels. Some 1.72 million more cubic metres will be removed to deepen and enlarge the harbour’s navigable areas.
While this project has faced opposition, it is nothing like that faced by what is proposed down the coast now under consideration by a Fast-track Approvals panel.
Many quarry and sand development proposals often drag on for years at huge expense, partly because councils are sometimes between a rock and a hard place; do they placate some fired-up residents – or provide for the very aggregate and sand they know is needed for their district’s roading and housing projects?
This all recalls that some years ago the AQA was approached by an excited reporter who had read a book about organised crime groups using deadly force to protect their illegal sand mining operations in Asia and elsewhere.
The suggestion was similar things might be happening here. As we pointed out, New Zealand has stringent resource management laws which require scientific assessment, monitoring and accountability.
We are now seeing changes to the RMA and amendments to some government planning documents which will help our industry to get access to rock and sand resources for Kiwis until the RMA reform legislation is passed later this year. All of this will assist in providing direction to councils on the need to provide for quarries and sand extraction as they develop their own regional spatial plans.
There has also been the introduction of the Fast-track Approvals Act. Some claim this process guts environmental protections. I note one of the earlier projects considered under the fast-track process received a draft rejection decision and it was withdrawn by the applicant – the proposal to extract iron sand off Taranaki’s coast. The company involved is bitterly disappointed. If opponents of that project want the decision accepted, I suggest those against the sand extraction proposal south of Whangārei should also have faith in the process and be prepared to accept the decision of the expert panel.
Throughout all of these resource management policy changes, our industry has been explicit: we do not want the environment coming off second in quarry and sand extraction developments. We are after certainty and speed – not environmental degradation. Members of our industry have worked for years to improve our environmental credentials and relationships with our communities.
We know that with the changes underway, we will need to deliver on those commitments and credentials along with the 1kg per hour of aggregate and sand every one of us needs.
Contact: Wayne Scott, AQA CEO 021 944 336
This OpEd was also published in the New Zealand Herald.