The Mokihinui Gorge dam

The Herald reports:

Commissioners who gave the green light to an 80m-high hydro dam in the Mokihinui Gorge north of Westport were overwhelmed by the gorge’s natural beauty, but said there were other equally beautiful gorges in the area.

John Lumsden, a civil engineer, and West Coast councillor Terry Archer outvoted fellow hearings commissioner Greg Ryder to say yes to the dam – the largest flooding of conservation land for hydro power ever proposed in New Zealand.

Explaining why they gave consent, the pair said: “If the Mokihinui River were to be considered in isolation, it would be difficult not to form the view that to build a dam and flood to gorge would be a travesty.

“When we walked through several sections … we could not help but be overwhelmed by its natural beauty.”

But they said that beauty was not unique on the West Coast, or even in the Buller District.

The renewable electricity the dam generated would give locals a more reliable power supply and take a load off fossil-fuelled power stations during dry years, they said.

This is the challenge facing NZ. If we want to have more renewable energy supply, then we need more dams. Yet, a dam has an environmental impact also.

What would people rather have – another coal powered power station, that only impacts a small area (yet releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases), or a renewable power hydro dam which impacts a larger area?

Some in the environmental movement are against all new energy projects. But that is a recipie for blackouts in a few years.

I’ve don’t know enough about Mokihinui to say whether the Commissioners made the right decision or not. But my challange to those who say it should not go ahead, is to specify an alternate location on the West Coast for a new power station.