Infinite Growth

Today's headlines are all about the inability of Christchurch to give resource consents quickly enough – probably to stadiums, convention centres and six-alne highways, while poorer people have no home to live in. Auckland is planning to add another million inhabitants to a city which is already straining to provide infrastructure to its existing inahbitants.

In Hawkes Bay they are proposing to lift permissable nitrate levels on the already badly-pollutedTukituki River to toxic levels to help the dairy industry, and they want to dam every river they can.

Every bit of economic growth is destroying the living beings that once thrived in this country. It is also a course of suicide.

The monster of infinite economic growth must be killed before it kills us.

This is the ONLY media reference I could find on this important issue.

Proposed nitrate lift could kill Tukituki River

Fish and Game is warning a Hawke's Bay Regional Council proposal to significantly increase the amount of nitrates allowed in the Tukituki River will kill the river

Environment Court split on Nevis dam

Radio NZ,

12 June, 2013

The Environment Court has given a split decision on whether Otago's last wild river can be dammed for hydro-power.

The 2 to 1 verdict on a water conservation order for the high country Nevis River follows a full hearing in late 2012, which agreed that the Nevis valley was a nationally outstanding landscape.

Plans by Pioneer Generation for a small hydro-power dam on the Nevis date back to about 1990 and have been strongly fought by recreation and conservation groups.

Two Environment Court commissioners found the river's wild, scenic nature and native fish populations should be protected with a permanent ban on dams to protect kayaking and fishing.

However, Judge Jon Jackson issued a minority decision on Thursday, saying the way must be left open for a small dam.

The final decision must be made by the Environment Minister Amy Adams.

The Otago Fish and Game Council says it is expecting Ms Adams to give proper weighting to the court's majority decision.

Chief executive Niall Watson said says the Nevis Valley is accumulating so much protection, it is unlikely that a dam project would ever be viable.

Environmentalists and recreational river users are rubbishing a judge's opinion that the need for renewable energy means Otago's last wild river could be dammed