Emergency quake law to push landslide debris into the sea

Monday 28th November 2016

The government will introduce three emergency pieces of legislation this week to over-ride normal environmental and planning law in favour of quickly restoring infrastructure damaged in the Kaikoura earthquake.

The one-off laws will permit landslide debris covering the coastal State Highway 1 to be pushed into the sea and early dredging of Kaikoura harbour, where boats are trapped following the seafloor rise caused by the 7.8 magnitude quake just after midnight on Nov 14, severing the road and rail links to both the north and south of the seaside South Island town and creating chaos for land freight and travellers between the North and South Islands.

While there may be some objections to pushing more debris into the sea than the quakes have already deposited, "Mother Nature has already done a fair bit of that," Key told his weekly post-Cabinet press conference. The government would act "carefully and with consultation" as it moved ahead, but it was "not practical" to consider removing all the spill of the quake landslip debris to other locations.

"If the resolution is to have the road in the same place, then we are going to have to remove that material one way or the other."

Planning is still under way on the best way to restore SH1 and the railway line that ran alongside it, and could include using reclaimed land created by landslide deposits to become the base for a new road.

However, if that decision was made, it would need further new legislation, Key said.

Two new pieces of law will be introduced to Parliament tomorrow for immediate passage without select committee consideration, while a third law governing how the first two will interact with existing legislation will be introduced on Thursday for a one week select committee consultation.

Asked about potential for destruction of native species habitats beyond those already destroyed by the earthquake, Key said: "That's the area of concern."

The emergency legislation would have sunset clauses. It would be unwise to leave such legislation in place permanently, since every natural disaster had its own characteristics and there would be concerns that such laws could be misused in future.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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