Good afternoon Commissioners This power point presentation has - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

• Good afternoon Commissioners • This power point presentation has been put together to support the submission made by the Wellington Recreational Marine Fishers Association • We are opposing the Trans-Tasman Resources Ltd resource consent application to mine 50 million tonnes of product to extract 5 million tonnes of iron ore and the method proposed of discharging 45 million tonnes of dredge waste back onto the sea bed for 20 years off the coast of Wanganui. • Our marine knowledge knows this process will create a massive mud storm that will severely reduce all marine life from north of New Plymouth to Wellington and right into the Marlborough Sounds and D’Urville Island including the mussel farms in Admiralty Bay. This will impact on our Government acknowledged right to catch our daily bag limit. • Presentation and research by Jim Mikoz President WRMFA • At EPA hearing 16 April 2014 1

• Let me first introduce this presentation as it contains information that you would have never seen before as it has been gathered over the last 50 years. • Firstly I will describe who I am and what experience I have to present this information. • I will take you through the errors in the information presented by NIWA, TTR, SKM and NIWA scientists. • I will take you to the Waverly iron sand mining that was taking place 33 years ago. • I will show you a number of mud slicks on the sea and comment on their known impacts. • I will then show you the fish I captured spawning and that NIWA has been providing misinformation to regional councils and Government for years. • Then I will show what we discovered while identifying the food sources of yellow eyed mullet. They and blue cod do not eat mud. • The impacts of dredge waste on marine life in Wellington Harbour will be explained. • How other sea bed mining projects were going to be managed. 2

• Show you the life in the Wellington Harbour submarine fresh water springs and why there are springs off Patea. Also discuss the consequences caused by the errors in the NIWA bathometric chart and why springs were missed off Patea and Wellington Harbour bathometric charts. • Take you to a sand mining project in Wellington that destroyed the biodiversity of two lakes and three beaches as the WRC could not find anyone with scientific marine knowledge to advise them. • I will show you why NIWA provided misinformation and failed to protect the blue cod in the Marlborough Sounds. • I will show you why sand can not be made into 11 metre deep trenches. • I will prove freshwater is lighter than sea water and that it forms slicks only millimetres thick in the open sea. • I will show you what happened to Porirua Harbour when there was no mud and sediment management in place. • I will prove the information provided by NIWA describing the currents in the area and through Cook Strait are incorrect and why. • I will show that when Wanganui experienced flooding in 1990,1998 and 2000 Makara received the muddy water three days later. • Describe what causes tidal surges and how NIWA can not predict them and 3 only comment after the event.

• I have through the WRMFA and Wellington Surfcasting and Angling Club represented all marine recreational fishers in the greater Wellington Region for thirty years and continue to do so through my appointment by Government on the MPI FMA 2 & 8 Recreational Marine Fishers Advisory Group. The NZ Angling and Casting Association appointed me as their Honorary Vice President to represent all NZ marine recreational fishers on DOC NGO forums, Ministry of Environment Exclusive Economic Zone and Environmental Reporting Forums. • For over thirty years my passion has been understanding the marine environment and I was asked to write by the Editor a number of stories in the NZ Fishing Coast to Coast magazine so that my acquired marine knowledge could be passed on to others. When I discovered the NZCPS was going to be rolled over for a further 10 years in 2002 I alerted the then Prime Minister Helen Clark and Minister of the Environment Marion Hobbs that there was no information describing the value of the intertidal to marine species. Three months later Helen Clark announced the review and replied with a three page letter. I have since been credited for the review. Latter Marion Hobbs set in place from my information the proposed National Policy Statement for 4 Freshwater Management. •

• In 2002 the Minister of Conservation Sandra Lee also replied “You are to be congratulated for your sterling and pioneering work on the conservation importance of the intertidal zone.” The next Minister of Conservation Chris Carter set in place the process to review the NZCPS and he also recognised the discoveries I was making when he wrote in a letter “Your focus on the importance of protecting the tidal reaches of waterways as critical habitats for a number of specie is an important contribution and is one of the issues that the review of the NZCPS will I am sure address.” • I was invited to attend the Foundation for Research Science and Technology programme called Natural Ecosystems a $32 million project to help identify areas where NZ lacks scientific knowledge. We were told there would be no funding into the intertidal zone even though I had advised them four of our eight national important data bases carried serious errors and not one native intertidal plant was named. I then wrote a story describing what I had found. My stories circulate through Government and it did not take long before funding was allocated. I proved you do not need to have a Dr before your name to make changes or discoveries. At a MofE Environmental Reporting meeting where 150 had assembled to learn about the inter tidal zone the NIWA scientist present told the meeting her group of scientists could not use my information as I was not a scientist. MofE people were not impressed and we 5 have not had these meetings since.

• Much of marine knowledge has been acquired from being an experienced competitive recreational fisher who held twenty five NZ Records and has won a number of fishing competitions in local and other waters. • My marine knowledge also interacts with my heavy industry and construction involvement and the knowledge it brings. • I began changing how the marine environment is managed twenty eight years ago when I stopped the Victoria University trawling Wellington Harbour after discovering their permit was illegal. A few years I wrote a letter to the Minister of Transport describing how the format of the marine forecast throughout NZ was wrong. I was invited to a discussion group where my ideas were accepted and now all forecasts on the phone, internet and TV today are based on my original concept. The Met service went from an annual two million dollar loss to a three million profit the next year. • It took five years of letters and surveys until finally the WCC built the Owhiro Bay boat ramp. I choose the site, ramp angle, construction method, and landscape ideas which allows the ramp to blend into the environment. • While taking part in the Wellington Port Company dredge working group I discovered the consultants had made a major error. The discovery led to the proposed dredging to be abandoned. As thanks I asked if they could keep Miramar Wharf open to recreational fishers they agreed and it has never been 6 shut since.

• Before the Meridian West Wind farm resource consent went to submission senior management accepted my marine knowledge and dropped their other plans to unload turbines and instead built a wharf where I had suggested and removed it after the work was finished, which I had also requested. • Another request for help resulted in Porirua Iwi taking the information I had gathered for another Meridian project and the MofE National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management to the WCC, PCC and WRC to ask that they take ownership of the Porirua Harbour and restore its value to Iwi. • For five years I represented NZ Fishing Council on mid water stock assessment committees. • Co wrote a science paper describing the value of beach cast seaweed to marine species. • Have become involved in protecting major marine specie spawning grounds over submarine fresh water springs in Evans Bay from an airport extension. • I am now involved on WCC community storm water group where the Policy’s I had introduced to the NZCPS ( 21 to 23 ) are now being carried out. • I am also on WCC wastewater and HCC wastewater community groups. • Took WCC to NZ Environment Court with overseas research proving the information the Cawthron Institute had provided at the resource consent was incorrect. They had taken samples half a metre below the surface and then 7 described 4000 litres of wastewater a second mixes with sea water inside 200 m.