Raglan votes to reject ultra-deep sea oil drilling

A community meeting of over 200 people voted to reject ultra-deep sea oil drilling off Raglan’s coast. It is expected that the Liberian drillship hired by the  Cayman Islands oil company Anadarko’s Taranaki branch, will be in position off the coast by mid-November. None of the Government and corporate spokespeople invited to the meeting attended, all saying that there  was not enough notice.  Those invited who did not come were Anadarko, Trans Tasman Resources, NZ Petroleum and Minerals, the Environmental Protection Authority, Maritime NZ and Raglan MP Shane Ardern.

The meeting was amused that the reason given by Maritime NZ for not attending was that they are a very small agency. This suggested to the meeting that they would be totally inadequate in handling any oil spill. The Environmental Protection Agency did arrange for a former employee to attend and present some PowerPoint slides for them, but he seemed unfamiliar with much of the content. It was left to local and environmental organisation representatives to explain what was happening.

Angeline Greensill said that Whaingaroa iwi had not been consulted and that the Government had breached the Treaty of Waitangi. Mrs Greensill read a short statement from Mr Seay of Anadarko which claimed Anadarko had not been involved in any “major incidents”. This got boos and hisses from the crowd. “That’s Anadarko, it doesn’t really tell us much,” Mrs Greensill said. Anadarko was held jointly responsible, by a US court, for 2010’s Gulf of Mexico spill. Greenpeace spokesman Steve Abel challenged Anadarko’s statement, telling the meeting that Anadarko was a 25 per cent investor in the Gulf of Mexico well which had blown.

Steve Abel of Greenpeace advised that the drillship Noble Bob Douglas has left Korea in late October and would be on station in water 1500m deep at the Romney Prospect in the Taranaki Basin about 200km west of Raglan. Helen Clark’s Labour Government granted the licence in 2006. The ultra-deep well will be New Zealand’s deepest and comparable to the Anadarko/BP Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr Abel said that Greenpeace had a flotilla of protest boats leaving NZ ports from Friday 8th that would meet the drillship. This would be the first protest carried out under the new National Government law which has made this type of protest illegal. Angeline Greensill said, “It would be a badge of honour to be arrested during the protests.” Kaumatua Paddy Kaa said, “Now we’ve got a boat. Our local iwi need to give Greenpeace a mandate to protect our fishery.”

The meeting in a packed Raglan Town hall also reaffirmed opposition to seabed mining. Phil McCabe of KASM said that an opportunity to lodge submissions on this will open about mid-November and be open for one month.

The meeting decided to take the following actions:

• Provide information to the Environmental Protection Agency that the Raglan meeting was opposed to the ultra-deep sea oil drilling and sea bed mining.
• Organise a follow-up meeting.  If this is on the marae then the community would be invited.
• The Concerned Hamilton Citizen’s group would be having a meeting on Thursday night at the university and undertake unspecified actions that would cause chaos.
• Whaingaroa locals will organise multiple signs protesting the drilling and mining activities.