Meridian Energy has taken a major step towards construction of a massive hydro-electric tunnel along the Waitaki River in South Canterbury.
The state-owned power company has gained final approval to take Waitaki water for its proposed $900 million North Bank Tunnel project -- a planned 12-metre-wide, 36km-long underground tunnel carrying up to 280 cubic metres of water per second, producing 1400 GWh of electricity annually for 175,000 homes in Otago and Canterbury, the Timaru Herald reported..
The Environment Court gave the company consent to take and use water from Lake Waitaki and to discharge water into the lower Waitaki River for 35 years after Meridian and the Lower Waitaki River Management Society reached agreement on Meridian's consent application -- which addressed environmental issues surrounding wetlands and braided- river birds.
Management society chairman Bill Penno said the group did not get everything it had been asking for but they had come to an acceptable agreement.
Meridian spokeswoman Claire Shaw said the next step was to start talking to landowners and other stakeholders about the land use consenting process.
Once complete, the tunnel scheme will feed into the Hunter Downs irrigation scheme, which could irrigate up to 40,000 of 60,000 hectares of land from the Waitaki River as far north as Otipua.
The project is expected to take seven years to complete and will employ more than 400 people.
