Don't steamroll bats for bitumen say Greens

The Green Party has spoken out in support of a community campaign to stop the construction of an asphalt plant in Riverlea, Hamilton.

“There are a number of important issues which people should be concerned about” says Green Party Environment spokesperson Nandor Tanczos, who was at a well attended public meeting on Tuesday night.

“The plant is likely to disrupt the rare native bats that travel through that gully system. Hamilton’s gullies are ecologically important, as the council has well recognised, so it is concerning to see that this project might proceed.

“Blacktop Construction is seeking consent to discharge contaminants from the plant, which poses obvious health and environmental risks for the local environment and residents. Consultation has been inadequate, and the community is rightly concerned.

“One of the issues is the zoning of the area involved, which means that legal grounds to oppose the consent are limited. Hamilton City Council needs to be asked a few hard questions in that regard. Nevertheless the Riverlea Environmental Society is well organised and has significant expertise among its members, so the company can expect some powerful opposition”.

“The geological reality is that we are facing the end of cheap oil in the next few years. The road building boom that this project is predicated on is intrinsically unsustainable and investing in plants to support road building is short sighted. Opposition must not be about just shifting the problem to a poorer or less influential community. The issue is more fundamental than that”.