Independent commissioners have turned down Cold Clutha Gold’s applications to dredge for gold in the Clutha River Mata-au near Wānaka but a company representative warns it has a ‘plan B’.

Earlier this week commissioners issued their decision on the applications, citing issues including potential adverse effects on fish habitats, eel migration, water health and the river bed, risk of fuel and human sewage spills, and unacceptable risks to safety. 

The positive effects of the application “are largely confined to the financial benefits that will accrue to the applicant,” they said. 

Cold Clutha Gold Ltd wanted to move its dredging operation - a 23.9m long, self-powered, steel commercial vessel with a suction-style dredge - from the mid-reaches of the Clutha, where it has been dredging since 2012, to an 23km area between Luggate and the top of Lake Dunstan.

This would require consents from Otago Regional Council, Queenstown Lakes District Council and Central Otago District Council, and the commissioners Rob van Voorthuysen, Jane Sinclair and Craig Welsh heard the applications in November last year. 

Submissions raised concerns about human sewage being thrown from the vessel into the water; a maze of wire ropes above and below water creating safety risks for other river users; and, as a former employee said, “dirty, noisy engines” which were highly likely to result in an oil spill. 

All three consents were declined by the commissioners, who called attention to a “paucity of information” from the applicants on the effects of dredging on aquatic ecology.

They also highlighted that the operation would result in “significant long term (if not permanent) changes to the natural character of the bed of the upper Mata au”; that collision with the vessel’s mooring warps, backing lines and sidelines “could result in severe injury or death”; and “perhaps most significantly, effects on Māori cultural values and interests including in terms of mahinga kai and the mauri and health of Mata-au”.

The decision also questioned Cold Clutha Gold’s submission that if the consent was declined it would undertake its “plan B” to establish a small fleet of permitted dredges which would operate in shallower, more ecologically sensitive areas of the river.

“We are unsure what the intent of that submission was,” commissioners said.

Cold Clutha Gold is owned by Daniel Walker and Peter Hall.

PHOTO: Supplied