A frankton resident whose property overlooks the Kawarau River told a resource consent hearing in Queenstown yesterday there was "potential for disaster" if commercial jet-boat operations on the river were increased.
Joanne Boyd was giving evidence to commissioners John Matthews and Leigh Overton on the final day of Queenstown Water Taxis' application to operate up to four boats on the Kawarau River as Thunder Jet.
Mrs Boyd, who has lived on a property at the end of Boyd Rd for 48 years, said potential cumulative effects of granting the resource consent were far reaching and needed further investigation.
"Simply put, we believe this river is already over-consented for commercial jet-boat operations.
"The fact that one company presently holds all the consents is not the issue . . . The facts are, that the potential cumulative effects . . . are more than likely unsustainable and unacceptable to this environment."
Mrs Boyd also referred to a fatal crash in January this year, involving a private jet-boat and a jet ski, which resulted in two deaths.
"An accident such as this could easily happen again tomorrow.
"We regularly see recreational jet-boats travelling at speed on the wrong side of the river; travelling with passengers without life jackets; travelling too close together; jet skis travelling at very high speeds anywhere they please . . . sometimes with multiple passengers and sometimes in groups without regard to other users.
"With large volumes of various traffic, including the big commercial boats and the presence of recreational users who do break the navigation rules, there is a potential for disaster.
"Additional consents for this time of year, we believe, would be unsafe."
Mrs Boyd said increased operation on the river, which in summer was "like a major motorway", also gave rise to serious safety concerns for all river users.
In January 2000, the Boyd family had a "near miss" with their then 10-year-old daughter and a family friend who were fishing in a dinghy, which could "very easily have resulted in two deaths".
Mrs Boyd said Kawarau Jet could operate a maximum of 160 trips per day, equating to 320 passes of the Boyd property a day - a boat could pass the property, on average, every 2.25 minutes, based on Kawarau Jet operating hour-long trips.
The consent application before the commissioners would create another maximum of 68 boat trips past the Boyd property, she said.
"This would mean the wake and noise from these boats would seem almost continual.
"I can hear critics' reply to this; that this level of activity will never happen.
"If anyone had suggested a few years ago that Kawarau Falls camping ground would become a billion-dollar development . . . or that Queenstown would have an international airport with regular jet services, these ideas would have definitely seemed 'fanciful'."
Mrs Boyd also detailed the cumulative environmental effects on the Kawarau, which stemmed from the 1980s. At that time, there were 10 separate commercial jet-boat users on that stretch of river, along with many recreational users.
Examples were given of ecological damage "undeniably" as a result of jet-boat wash, including the loss of tons of topsoil into the river from the Boyd property in 1984, caused by "constant" jet-boat wash eroding the river bank.
The commissioners were also told by Jim Castiglione, legal counsel for Kawarau Jet, the Queenstown Water Taxis application should be publicly renotified because there had been "material changes" over which radio frequency it intended to use, shifting between Marine Channel 5 (MM5), a public channel, and EN67, a private marine channel.
MM5 has only been in existence for the past 12 months and its signal does not stretch to cover the length of the Kawarau River.
Kawarau Jet operates on its own private channel, which is solely for the use of its commercial drivers.
The commissioners reserved their decision.
