Newsletter 45
Dear Southland Sea Kayakers
9 January 2009
I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year and have been out in your sea kayaks. It is an age since I lasted posted a newsletter as there has been little to report. Last summer there was a flurry of activity as several overseas sea kayakers went around the South Island. In the autumn Misha Hoichman did a solo trip from Te Waewae to Milford. http://www.hoichman.com/fiordland/index.html
In early December, Jacqui and Tim Anderson and Belinda and Stanley Mulvany did a river kayaking course at the NZ Kayak School at Murchison. This was an intensive introductory course in rolling and in river running. They all felt it was very worthwhile and improved skills easily transferred to sea kayaking. Since then they have been out rolling on several occasions and Belinda has been doing combat rolls in the surf. In early December Melanie and Max Grant kayaked from Oreti Beach to St Kilda in Dunedin in a week in sometimes difficult conditions. Have a look at their excellent website http://southislandcharityexpedition.blogspot.com Over New Year Belinda did a solo kayak circumnavigation of Lake Manapouri. I'm not aware of any other significant kayak trips so far this summer locally.
During the year our website was revamped with updating of the text and information on it as well as a whole new photo gallery. Have a look through it and let me know you thoughts and any suggestions to improve it. http://www.sskn.uniformnz.com/
I am shortly leaving on a yachting trip from India to the Mediterranean on the Vasco Da Gama International yacht Rally http://www.vascodagamarally.nl/portal/ My own blog site is mulvanyadventures.blogspot.com I will not be back in New Zealand till July. Until then can all correspondence be sent to Tim Anderson [email protected] phone number 03-2349399.
I encourage members to join KASK ( Kiwi Association of Sea Kayakers) http://www.kask.org.nz/ Membership cost $35.00/annum and you get a free hand book on joining plus 6 newsletter a year and notices of meetings and forums.
Just a reminder this network is not a club and it provides a forum for local sea kayakers to connect with each other. Our website allows you to contact other sea kayakers and to organise a trip. We do run a winter course of rolling at Splash Palace. The last few organised trips have been poorly attended so I've lost interest in organising further ones.
I always welcome trip reports and am more than happy to print them.
Lastly, I have enclosed an article I wrote recently on proposed hydro development
An Environmental Disaster for New Zealand's most pristine Rivers
by Stanley Mulvany
New Zealand is facing an energy crisis with electricity demand growing at the rate of 150-200 megawatts of generating capacity every year. Some of the extra demand is due to population increase but a large part is due to intensification of agriculture with huge growth in the dairy industry and irrigation on a vast scale. Compounding the problem is the privatisation of the electricity industry who naturally are driven by profit for their shareholders. Global warming and the Emmission Trading Scheme have popularised so called Renewable Energy. The government have committed New Zealand to producing 90% of its electricity by 2025 up from 70% at present. Present policy is to look at increasing hydroelectric, wind farm and thermal generation.
On a recent kayaking course in Murchison I learned much about proposed hydroelectric generation proposals for a raft of rivers in the upper part of the West Coast including the Mokihinui River near Seddonville, the Matiri River, the Matakitaki River, the Glenroy river and many others. The word on the street is that that electricity companies and private companies have been quietly buying land in the catchments of these rivers and Network Tasman have contracted Hydro Tasmania to investigate dam proposals. Hydro Tasmania has an unenviable record of single handedly destroying the vast majority of Tasmania's rivers. It polarised the local population by false promises of increased jobs and led to the birth of the Green Party in Australia.
Currently Meridian Energy is proposing a dam on the Mokihinui River just upstream of Seddonville. It will destroy a prime kayaking river as well as a large swathe of native forest. It is estimated to produce about 85 MW ( just half a years demand). The West Coast Regional and Buller District Council oppose this scheme. Interestingly Meridian have rejected an unfavourable Landcare Research report it commissioned as "unsuitable". In this report it was suggested removal of another west coast dam would mitigate some of the environmental impacts of the proposal. No doubt Meridian considered this too expensive.
There is a less well known proposal for the Matiri River by a private Motueka company a so called "River run scheme" but in essence it will only allow 1 cumec of water in the river at selected times and render it unsuitable for kayaking as well as destroying the fish population.
I had the pleasure of kayaking down the Matakitaki River with Mick Hopkinson founder of the NZ Kayak School at Murchison recently. Although the valley may seem modified from the road with green fields and some plantations from river level it was spectacular with grade 2 rapids, high canyon walls and a green corridor of native bush overhead. This too is under threat. What is even more astonishing is that the amount of power thought to be generated is only 15 MW from that proposal.
Additional environmental damage associated with hydro dams on these rivers are the construction of access roads, transmission lines and loss of habitat for endangered species such as blue duck. As a matter of interest I did a tramp last week in the Toaroha and Kokatahi Rivers and recorded 6 blue duck on my trip. I've no doubt other west coast rivers will have similar populations of blue duck.
Indefinite electricity demand is unsustainable and will not be solved by damming every river in New Zealand. The amount of electricity generated from damming West Coast rivers is actually quite small when compared to the 800MW of the Manapouri scheme. We need to tackle the problem on several fronts and most importantly to reduce demand. Subsidized solar heating, eco bulbs and better education of the population as regards conservation of power ( turn off hot water if going on holidays as an example) are essential. Also agriculture and industry must play their part. Agriculture has an ETS holiday till 2013. How fair is this?
Lastly, I will touch on the myth that hydro is the long term answer to secure supply. Not true! Dams grow old and die like us. When they die they produce a big problem if not decommissioned such as the risk of dam failure. In the USA there are 80,000 dams and greater than half are over 50 years old. The life span of a typically unmaintained dam is conservatively estimated at 75 yrs according to Environment Canada. In the USA there are thousands of derelict dams and the company owners have vanished and no one is taking responsibility for decommissioning. In Pakistan the world's largest earth dam, the Tarbela Dam on the Indus has a life span of 85 years which means it is half finished already. The same fate awaits all our dams. We also are planning dams in a earthquake zone. How sensible is that? We will leave a huge legacy of environmental damage and derelict dams for our children to sort out.
"Clean and Green" should be our guiding principal not an empty shibboleth. I know we can do better and it's smart to do so. Tourism is a huge money earner for this country and the main reason people come is to see unspoilt nature not ugly hydro dams and wrecked rivers. It affects all of us kayakers, trampers, recreational fishermen mountaineers and yes the tourists and you and I. Lets have more debate on the future of our wild rivers in New Zealand. Do we understand what is at risk? Lets look at alternatives.
Best wishes for 2009 and safe kayaking
Stanley
9 January 2009
I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year and have been out in your sea kayaks. It is an age since I lasted posted a newsletter as there has been little to report. Last summer there was a flurry of activity as several overseas sea kayakers went around the South Island. In the autumn Misha Hoichman did a solo trip from Te Waewae to Milford. http://www.hoichman.com/fiordland/index.html
In early December, Jacqui and Tim Anderson and Belinda and Stanley Mulvany did a river kayaking course at the NZ Kayak School at Murchison. This was an intensive introductory course in rolling and in river running. They all felt it was very worthwhile and improved skills easily transferred to sea kayaking. Since then they have been out rolling on several occasions and Belinda has been doing combat rolls in the surf. In early December Melanie and Max Grant kayaked from Oreti Beach to St Kilda in Dunedin in a week in sometimes difficult conditions. Have a look at their excellent website http://southislandcharityexpedition.blogspot.com Over New Year Belinda did a solo kayak circumnavigation of Lake Manapouri. I'm not aware of any other significant kayak trips so far this summer locally.
During the year our website was revamped with updating of the text and information on it as well as a whole new photo gallery. Have a look through it and let me know you thoughts and any suggestions to improve it. http://www.sskn.uniformnz.com/
I am shortly leaving on a yachting trip from India to the Mediterranean on the Vasco Da Gama International yacht Rally http://www.vascodagamarally.nl/portal/ My own blog site is mulvanyadventures.blogspot.com I will not be back in New Zealand till July. Until then can all correspondence be sent to Tim Anderson [email protected] phone number 03-2349399.
I encourage members to join KASK ( Kiwi Association of Sea Kayakers) http://www.kask.org.nz/ Membership cost $35.00/annum and you get a free hand book on joining plus 6 newsletter a year and notices of meetings and forums.
Just a reminder this network is not a club and it provides a forum for local sea kayakers to connect with each other. Our website allows you to contact other sea kayakers and to organise a trip. We do run a winter course of rolling at Splash Palace. The last few organised trips have been poorly attended so I've lost interest in organising further ones.
I always welcome trip reports and am more than happy to print them.
Lastly, I have enclosed an article I wrote recently on proposed hydro development
An Environmental Disaster for New Zealand's most pristine Rivers
by Stanley Mulvany
New Zealand is facing an energy crisis with electricity demand growing at the rate of 150-200 megawatts of generating capacity every year. Some of the extra demand is due to population increase but a large part is due to intensification of agriculture with huge growth in the dairy industry and irrigation on a vast scale. Compounding the problem is the privatisation of the electricity industry who naturally are driven by profit for their shareholders. Global warming and the Emmission Trading Scheme have popularised so called Renewable Energy. The government have committed New Zealand to producing 90% of its electricity by 2025 up from 70% at present. Present policy is to look at increasing hydroelectric, wind farm and thermal generation.
On a recent kayaking course in Murchison I learned much about proposed hydroelectric generation proposals for a raft of rivers in the upper part of the West Coast including the Mokihinui River near Seddonville, the Matiri River, the Matakitaki River, the Glenroy river and many others. The word on the street is that that electricity companies and private companies have been quietly buying land in the catchments of these rivers and Network Tasman have contracted Hydro Tasmania to investigate dam proposals. Hydro Tasmania has an unenviable record of single handedly destroying the vast majority of Tasmania's rivers. It polarised the local population by false promises of increased jobs and led to the birth of the Green Party in Australia.
Currently Meridian Energy is proposing a dam on the Mokihinui River just upstream of Seddonville. It will destroy a prime kayaking river as well as a large swathe of native forest. It is estimated to produce about 85 MW ( just half a years demand). The West Coast Regional and Buller District Council oppose this scheme. Interestingly Meridian have rejected an unfavourable Landcare Research report it commissioned as "unsuitable". In this report it was suggested removal of another west coast dam would mitigate some of the environmental impacts of the proposal. No doubt Meridian considered this too expensive.
There is a less well known proposal for the Matiri River by a private Motueka company a so called "River run scheme" but in essence it will only allow 1 cumec of water in the river at selected times and render it unsuitable for kayaking as well as destroying the fish population.
I had the pleasure of kayaking down the Matakitaki River with Mick Hopkinson founder of the NZ Kayak School at Murchison recently. Although the valley may seem modified from the road with green fields and some plantations from river level it was spectacular with grade 2 rapids, high canyon walls and a green corridor of native bush overhead. This too is under threat. What is even more astonishing is that the amount of power thought to be generated is only 15 MW from that proposal.
Additional environmental damage associated with hydro dams on these rivers are the construction of access roads, transmission lines and loss of habitat for endangered species such as blue duck. As a matter of interest I did a tramp last week in the Toaroha and Kokatahi Rivers and recorded 6 blue duck on my trip. I've no doubt other west coast rivers will have similar populations of blue duck.
Indefinite electricity demand is unsustainable and will not be solved by damming every river in New Zealand. The amount of electricity generated from damming West Coast rivers is actually quite small when compared to the 800MW of the Manapouri scheme. We need to tackle the problem on several fronts and most importantly to reduce demand. Subsidized solar heating, eco bulbs and better education of the population as regards conservation of power ( turn off hot water if going on holidays as an example) are essential. Also agriculture and industry must play their part. Agriculture has an ETS holiday till 2013. How fair is this?
Lastly, I will touch on the myth that hydro is the long term answer to secure supply. Not true! Dams grow old and die like us. When they die they produce a big problem if not decommissioned such as the risk of dam failure. In the USA there are 80,000 dams and greater than half are over 50 years old. The life span of a typically unmaintained dam is conservatively estimated at 75 yrs according to Environment Canada. In the USA there are thousands of derelict dams and the company owners have vanished and no one is taking responsibility for decommissioning. In Pakistan the world's largest earth dam, the Tarbela Dam on the Indus has a life span of 85 years which means it is half finished already. The same fate awaits all our dams. We also are planning dams in a earthquake zone. How sensible is that? We will leave a huge legacy of environmental damage and derelict dams for our children to sort out.
"Clean and Green" should be our guiding principal not an empty shibboleth. I know we can do better and it's smart to do so. Tourism is a huge money earner for this country and the main reason people come is to see unspoilt nature not ugly hydro dams and wrecked rivers. It affects all of us kayakers, trampers, recreational fishermen mountaineers and yes the tourists and you and I. Lets have more debate on the future of our wild rivers in New Zealand. Do we understand what is at risk? Lets look at alternatives.
Best wishes for 2009 and safe kayaking
Stanley