Don’t Burn Waipa
Global Contracting Solutions, the company behind plans to build a waste to energy incinerator in Te Awamutu is promising to pay its resource consent costs.
Lobby group Don’t Burn Waipā – this photo comes from our files – was telling supporters about the Paewira application being suspended – while the EPA was telling The News to call back the next day.
Following a three-week hearing, Environmental Protection Authority chief executive Dr Allan Freeth emailed 2173 submitters last Wednesday to say the incinerator application had been suspended because the applicant had failed to pay costs.
Ahead of The News going to press, payment had not been received by Monday afternoon.
Pressure group Don’t Burn Waipā submitted against the application during the inquiry in Hamilton in June and July and went public with the EPA’s announcement via social media.
At the same time, the EPA declined to discuss the issue and told The News to call back the next day.
Paewira waste-to-energy plant project director Adam Fletcher said on Friday he was aware of the EPA email and Global Contracting Solutions intended to settle its bill.
“We have been making regular payments to the EPA all the way through. We have always intended to settle the bill,” Fletcher said.
He said payments were not up to date because costs had doubled one month before the board of inquiry began into the application in June.
“We are a bit bemused as to why they chose to do this now,” Fletcher said. “We are only two weeks away from the decision. It seems a bit non sensical.”
The cost of the application was confidential, Fletcher said.
EPA senior communications advisor Julia Scott-Beetham said the application was still suspended on Monday.
“Once full payment of all outstanding costs has been received, the EPA will notify all parties and resume processing the application,” she said.
Fletcher refused to discuss a further $40,665 outstanding resource consent processing costs owed to Waipā District Council since April 2024.
Project director Adam Fletcher and CEO Roger Wilson. Photo: Benjamin Wilson
The application initially went to the council, before being called in to an independent board of inquiry by minister for the environment Penny Simmonds.
Under the Resource Management Act, the EPA may suspend the processing of consent applications if costs are outstanding, until payment is made in full.
Freeth said the suspension would pause all statutory processing timeframes, including the August 28 decision date.
“Due to the process being suspended, this decision due date will no longer remain valid. If processing is resumed, we will provide an updated date, in line with the remaining statutory timeframe, in which the board of inquiry must make a decision.
“If the applicant subsequently pays the costs recoverable by the EPA, we will lift our suspension on processing their consent application.”
Waipā District Council and Te Awamutu and Kihikihi Community Board were among submitters on the plan, the vast majority in opposition.
Kane Titchener
The EPA’s decision to suspend the application came as a shock to board deputy chair Kane Titchener and Don’t Burn Waipā spokesman Nick Cantlon.
“It is entirely reasonable that the applicants are required to pay first before receiving the ruling,” Titchener said.
“The issue is that there is a considerable amount of anxiety in the Te Awamutu and Kihikihi District because we were close to having certainty about the application. People’s lives, and in some cases businesses, have been put on hold. This delay is just another hold up.”
Cantlon said the decision had been anticipated in the next two weeks ”and to now be thrown into a state of limbo has been very disconcerting”.
“We had been planning to have a community event to acknowledge the board of inquiry’s decision, but this is now on hold.”
Cantlon said the group had asked the EPA whether there was a statutory limit on how long the application could stay suspended.
“This process has been underway for nearly four years, and the final decision was only two weeks away, having the process stopped like this is very unsettling to the local community who would like certainty by way of a decision.”
