Inside Resources - Brookby expansion approved
SOURCE INSIDE RESOURCES, HEIDI BENDIKSON - THU, OCT 3 2024
Consent for an expansion of the Brookby quarry is good news for the business but even better for Auckland, managing director Steve Riddell says.
A fast-track consenting panel released its decision approving the stage 3 expansion yesterday, albeit with a smaller footprint than that originally proposed.
Brookby quarry offered the reduction in quarry size – 51.9 hectares down to 42.2 ha – and increased proposed offset measures during the course of the consenting process.
The panel – comprising chair Andrew Beatson, Cheryl Cleary and Alethea Hikuroa – noted the significant national and regional benefit of the proposal, including continued supply of high-quality rock for construction projects and long-term employment.
However, it also involved the removal of significant vegetation and streams.
“Whether these effects will be satisfactorily offset and/or compensated is a critical matter to our decision making,” the panel says in its 134-page decision.
It concluded the proposal’s design, conditions and management measures – especially the offsetting measures and compensation – would manage the effects and there would be no net-loss of ecological values.
Riddell says the result is important for identifying and allowing a resource of national significance to supply and contribute to Auckland’s ongoing construction needs.
“It’s a very good decision, but more importantly it is an outstanding decision for Auckland in terms of aggregate supply.”
Application
The proposal is for a third-stage expansion of Brookby quarry, which is within the Special Quarry Purpose Zone under the Auckland Unitary Plan.
Under the company’s original application, the expansion would have seen the extraction of 161 million tonnes of greywacke over the lifetime of the expanded site.
With the smaller footprint, that has been reduced to about 156 million tonnes.
An assessment of economic effects found that the expansion – increasing annual production from the quarry from 2.85 million tonnes to 5.7 million tonnes – would reduce reliance on aggregate imported from outside the Auckland region.
Despite the expansion doubling aggregate production from the site, it will not result in additional truck movements from those already consented.
The company told the panel the site does not currently meet maximum truck movements allowed under its existing resource consents and the expected daily output could be “easily accommodated” within the existing allowances.
Impact
The consent panel noted the proposal’s reduced size materially reduced the extent of indigenous vegetation and streams to be removed.
It meant a northern tributary, a large portion of which was within natural stream management areas under the Auckland Unitary Plan, was no longer affected.
An initial 30.58 ha of indigenous vegetation to be removed was reduced to 22.57 ha and the length of watercourses being removed went from 1716 metres to 1135 metres.
However, the adjusted proposal still impacted at-risk species and 540 m2 of high-value streams.
The updated application involved offsetting and compensation at both the quarry site and five alternative locations, including Motutapu Island and Mataitai Scenic Reserve.
While final agreements were not in place with the landowners of two of those sites, the panel said the consent conditions would ensure they would be before any vegetation was removed.
Compensation – aquatic ecology
The proposal’s effects on aquatic ecosystems and the company's proposed aquatic ecology offsetting and compensation measures were a matter of contention for the panel.
A key issue was whether loss of stream values and their extent could be offset through restoration or enhancement measures on existing streams, rather than the creation of new streams.
The panel concluded that it could, drawing on case law which said an unduly rigid approach was not appropriate.
It found that aquatic offsetting and compensation offered by the company would achieve a net gain in aquatic ecological values.
"There is nothing irreplaceable about the streams to be removed, there are no further practicable opportunities for offsetting onsite, and notwithstanding differences in stream habitat type between impact site and offset site (for example soft bottom vs rocky bottom) the panel is satisfied that the applicant’s proposed offsetting measures are sufficiently like-for-like and will achieve a net gain in biodiversity values.”
The panel concluded the proposed effects management package was an appropriate response to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and the Auckland Unitary plan, including the effects management hierarchy and offset compensation.
Fast track
The Brookby proposal was one of three North Island quarry projects referred for consideration under the Covid-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Act in June last year.
The others were a plan by Tūpore Infrastructure to open a new pit at Maraekakaho in Hawke’s Bay, which was approved in a much-reduced capacity in August, and the expansion of the Kings Quarry near Kaukapakapa.
A decision on Kings Quarry is due by 25 October.