Ngai Tahu is to appeal to the Environment Court a decision to grant water for the proposed Meridian Energy Ltd $900 million power scheme on the lower Waitaki River.
It will join at least two other groups in lodging appeals opposing the granting of four resource consents for the north bank tunnel concept (NBTC) power scheme when they close with the court today.
The Waitaki Protection Trust and Lower Waitaki River Management Society have both said they would be appealing the decision by Environment Canterbury (ECan) at the end of last year to grant consents to divert, take, use and discharge water for the scheme.
Meridian wants to build the scheme - a 34km-long tunnel with one power station generating between 1100 and 1400GWh of electricity a year - between the Waitaki dam and Stonewall, near Ikawai, on the north bank of the river.
To make the scheme economic, it would need up to 260cumecs of water, leaving a variable monthly flow of between 110 and 150cumecs in that stretch of the river.
Ngai Tahu opposed granting consents for the scheme when an ECan panel of four commissioners heard submissions in Timaru in 2007.
Ngai Tahu's environmental adviser Paul Horgan told the commissioners that "enough was enough" when it came to further hydro development of the river.
The diversion of up to two-thirds of the river's water for new power scheme was culturally insensitive.
He did not believe Meridian could completely mitigate the detrimental effects the scheme would have on the cultural values of the river to Ngai Tahu.
In many ways, the NBTC proposal was the final opportunity for Ngai Tahu to obtain meaningful recognition of and provision for the outstanding cultural values it associated with the Waitaki River, he said.
Waitaki First, which had previously said it would appeal against the NBTC scheme, yesterday announced it would not do so, but would co-operate and assist the Waitaki Protection Trust's appeal.
The Central South Island Fish and Game Council, which also opposed the project, has also said it will not appeal, but will seek to be an interested parties if appeals were filed.
