A resource consent hearing would not have been the place for groups philosophically opposed to coal mining to have had their say, an Environment Southland staff member said.
The Coal Action Network and the Green Party yesterday condemned the Gore District Council's decision not to allow public submissions on Solid Energy's resource consent application to build a briquette manufacturing plant near Mataura.
The plant would use a lignite-fired boiler to convert 148,000 tonnes of low-grade lignite annually into briquettes, which can be burnt as fuel in household and industrial heating units.
The coal would be transported to the plant from the New Vale mine, near Waimumu, about 20km away.
The Coal Action Network and the Greens oppose coal mining and the use of coal as a heating fuel because burning coal emits carbon dioxide which adds to global warming.
However, Environment Southland senior consents officer Stephen West yesterday said the Resource Management Act (RMA) did not allow submitters to canvass wider issues such as the environmental effects of mining or climate change in resource consent hearings.
"In fact, talking about [such] issues is specifically prohibited under the RMA. If anyone had put in a submission like that, we would have had to dismiss it anyway."
The district council has employed independent commissioners David Whitney and David Pullar to consider Solid Energy's application. The council has responsibility for planning issues such as land use, visual effect, traffic and noise.
Mr West said Environment Southland would also consider the application, looking particularly at discharges to air from the plant boiler, water takes and discharges, and the potential for dust from lignite stored at the plant.
Environment Southland decided on limited notification, he said. It had identified 12 affected parties and invited them to make submissions: two iwi groups, the district council, the Department of Conservation, Public Health South, Fish and Game, and neighbours.
The district council could have adopted the same process but had chosen not to, he said.
Coal Action Network spokeswoman Frances Mountier and Green Party lignite coal spokesman Gareth Hughes both said the district council had made the wrong decision. Mr Hughes said he would call on the Government to "step in and stop this lignite madness".
Both referred to the irony of the decision being made the same week as a visit to New Zealand by leading climate change scientist and strong coal-mining opponent Dr Jim Hansen.
Dr Hansen, who is speaking in Dunedin and Gore next week, has called coal "the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet".
