Two Southland councils have declined requests to reopen the consents behind Datagrid's $3.5 billion data centre at Makarewa, saying the legal tests for a review have not been met.
The Southland Sustainable Resource Coalition had asked Environment Southland to review the project's water take consent, and asked the Southland District Council to revisit the conditions on its land use consent, chiefly over noise.
Environment Southland has told the coalition it will not review the water take because the circumstances required under the Resource Management Act do not exist.
The council's Hayley Fitchett said the consented operational water take was "less than 10% of the limit set in the Proposed Southland Water and Land Plan". A consent could be reviewed in certain circumstances, including where that was needed to make sure a regional plan's limits could be met, but Datagrid had not yet begun drawing water.
"The consent is yet to be exercised," she said, and there was no monitoring data to suggest the consented rate or volume could not be fully used.
The regional council's consents for the site cover discharges to air and land, the water take and work affecting a small wetland. The applications were not publicly notified: the council's notification report found the environmental effects would be minor and that potentially affected parties had given written approval. An ecology report described the affected wetland as small, dominated by exotic pasture and without indigenous species. No drainage or modification was authorised for a separate, regionally significant wetland at the southern end of the site.
Noise complaints did not meet threshold
The coalition's request to the district council focused on noise, including low-frequency noise and infrasound, cooling-system noise, the assumptions used in acoustic modelling, substation and generator noise, baseline noise monitoring, and whether important information had been left out of the original assessment.
An independent hearing commissioner considered material from the coalition, members of the public, Datagrid and its advisers, an independent acoustic peer review and independent legal advice. The commissioner found the information did not establish either ground for a review under section 128 of the Act: an unforeseen adverse effect, or inaccurate information from the applicant that had materially influenced the consent decision.
The council said it would continue to monitor compliance, investigate complaints, carry out compliance monitoring once the facility was operating and use its enforcement powers where necessary.
Earthworks under way
Datagrid began horizontal earthworks on its 49-hectare Makarewa site in August. HEB Construction, a subsidiary of French group VINCI, is building a new access road to State Highway 98 and a six-metre noise bund for neighbours, with the foundation platform, cable landing station and power substation due for completion by the end of the year.
The first phase of the campus is planned at 280 megawatts, with six data halls covering 9.5 hectares and a dedicated substation connected to the 220kV Manapōuri–Tiwai transmission line. Mercury Energy has paid $53 million for a 12.7 per cent stake in the company, and the Tasman Ring submarine cable, due to be operational in 2027, is to come ashore at Ōreti Beach.
Hundreds of people attended a coalition meeting in July to raise concerns about water use and noise. Datagrid chief executive Rémi Galasso has argued that the plant's actual water consumption will be very low, smaller in his words than that of a dairy farm.
