Can the Council clean up after itself?

Well, judging by the article in last weeks "The Sun" newspaper - No.

In spite of being subjected to excessive noise by a Council rule that allowed multiple frost fans to be placed within spitting distance of their house, a couple up the Wairau valley have had much in the way of promises and little in the way of substance delivered.
You have to start asking yourself. "Could this be a case of  there but for the grace of God go I?"
The Council have stuffed up here by allowing a blatantly stupid rule to torment average residents. Where does their responsibility lie?
You know, I'd like to know if anyone ever takes responsibility for that 100m rule debacle.

Ouch! That stings.

I'm afraid that the hits keep coming.

Readers of the Marlborough Express (while they keep printing stuff like this, I'll be buying) will have noticed that yesterdays Editorial cut right through the crap (pardon my French) and produced some very interesting angles on the recent frost fan hearing information;
Wine industry crying wolf over job losses.
Wine industry invokes "nuclear  option".
The fan sales companies have done a fabulous job in using the spectre of crop losses to proliferate their use throughout the region.
District Council passes the buck.
Critical mass of frost fans.
The focus on individual fans is almost a bait and switch tactic (that's such a cool phrase).
The idea that questioning fan use is a major threat to the industry becomes slightly ridiculous.
In a sustained downturn there will be casualties and looking for scapegoats won't change that.
There's a need to provide more to the province than a wine derived trickle-down economic model.

Nice bit of writing there.

Day three of the frost fans hearing

Go the Marlborough Express! Great coverage of the hearings all the way up to the last day.

So more interesting stuff.
Predictably, the whine industry is crying poverty in these difficult economic times. And they're right times will be tough. Especially for what is essentially luxury goods.
$1billion of Marlborough wine put at risk in a frost event? Err.. I'm not sure that that would be right would it? I mean didn't all of NZ produce $1billion last year (as reported by NZ Winegrowers I think) so that might be a bit of a stretch. Also, how much of that is covered by frost fans? Surely the percentage being protected by frost fans is pretty small, So I would presume that a catastrophic frost event is going to still be catastrophic even if all the frost fans in Marlborough are whirling away. Kind of smells a bit like scaremongering :-)
And apparently Marlborough was a dust bowl before the wine industry transformed it. Actually, I kind of thought that the varied orchards, peas, garlic and the marvelous trees that were scattered across the plains were kind of pretty before the vineyard mono-culture crept in. If anything is going to make Marlborough vulnerable it would be reliance on a single industry to support it. Anyone remember seeing herds of cattle and flocks of sheep? Where did they go?

And to think, all this on the day when David Prestipino called New Zealand Sav Blanc oversupplied and to be avoided. Perhaps a catastrophic frost could assist?

Day two at the frost fan hearing

It would appear that there were some more pertinent points raised again at the hearing.
Well done to the Marlborough Express again for coverage of the frost fan hearing.

Cumulative effects (again (surely the cumulative effect of all these people saying something about cumulative effect will have an effect?)).

Serious health issues (sleep deprivation could include cardiovascular disease, mental-health effects and impaired cognitive performance).
But the most interesting thing of the day appears to have come from a lawyer and his client and it's kind of a big deal.
The argument goes a bit like this;
If you have an existing fan that was installed under the old rules where effectively you just had to get a building consent and bung it on the ground, then if it was shown that your fan did not meet the standards in the district plan (that would be the old standard I presume), you wouldn't have any existing use rights (because you never had a resource consent to operate beyond the limit in the Plan. At that point you would be forced to apply for a resource consent for your fan and it would appear that you would need to meet the new standards.
Opps!
Let's see if I can paint an ugly picture here.
What if installers have been putting in fans for years and just bunging them on the ground and not bothering to set the speed of their fans to match the manufacturers recommendations for the required noise level?
Actually, this might have been happening already.
Young Malcolm Maclean has been measuring fan speed and his measurements seem to indicate that Orchard Rite and Amarillo frost fans are being run at speeds that would make them non compliant according to the manufacturers data.
The Frost Boss 4 bladed models look pretty good, but if the worst case scenario is true, those with Amarillo or Orchard rite fans should be getting their installers to set the fans to a compliant speed.
I'm picking they probably don't know what the compliant speed is.
If you have doubt, Malcolm included a look up table in his measurement document that provides a reference to the manufacturers data here.
Malcolm, you may want to make some comment?
Well done to the Marlborough Express again for coverage of the frost fan hearing.

Fun and Games at the Frost Fan Hearing

I have to say there are some hold-outs out there. :-)
But the good old Marlborough Express has come to the party and provided a glimpse into the goings on in the hearing into the proposed change to Marlborough's District Plan (technically, that would be the Wairau/Awatere Plan and the Marlborough Sounds Plan).

It looks like a lot of affected folks have been having their say.
Good words used like;
"Flawed"
"Unacceptable"
"Heads in the sand"
"Sad indictment"

and my favorite;

"We're not just numbers, we're people"


Of course the focus should be on the proposed plan. So its good to see such obvious things being identified as cumulative effects and the dichotomy of having allowable night time noises louder than the daytime noises. How weird is that?
I'm presuming that the opposite side of the fence haven't had their say yet, so I suppose we need to stay tuned.
If anyone has some copies of the statements / evidence / submissions, send em through.

Hardly painting a pretty picture in Hastings

Shame and a financial sting have descended on Morton Estate Wines Limited who have been fined $50,000 for taking water for irrigation after being expressly told not to by the local Council.
They thought they would just receive an infringement notice, so they went ahead and sucked water from the local river in what the Judge described as a "deliberate flouting of a perfectly well known restriction".
Unfortunately for them, the Hawkes Bay Regional Council took a dim view of that sort of arrogance and rightly took them to court.
$50,000 later the company is licking its wounds and hopefully getting a better appreciation of the finer points of playing by the rules.
The company owns vineyards in Hawkes Bay and Marlborough, but the most interesting thing is that the owner of the company doesn't live in either of these locations.
In fact he lives in Canada.
His name is Mark Coney.
He is the director of quite a number of companies in New Zealand
Stone Key Trading
Surfdale Beach Properties Limited
Rossana Projects Limited
Key Pacific Corporation (NZ) Limited
The Wine Portfolio Limited
Ascross Investments Limited
One Tree Hill Vineyards Limited

The Fans! The Fans Esmeralda!!

There we go.
I think this definitely counts as the first real running of the fans for the year. (sure there were a few a couple of Saturday's ago, but it was a pretty average effort).
By my checking the temperature was about 3.5 degrees.
THAT WOULD BE 3.5 DEGREES ABOVE 0 CELSIUS. AND IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN, THE LAWS OF PHYSICS STILL REQUIRE THE TEMPERATURE TO DROP BELOW ZERO BEFORE WATER FREEZES!!

Neil Wilson, You're my hero.

New Zealand is a country where if you speak out of turn, typically you will be looked at askance.
We might all think a particular thing, but it is a rare soul who has the courage to call a spade a spade.

For those who read the Marlborough Express, the letter written in by Neil Wilson today covers a number of topics (some dear to the heart of this blog). What is the most comforting is that there are still people who will tell the emperor that they have no clothes.
Great quotes include;
"Bang, bang, bang - welcome to Blenheim"
"It's great to live in Blenheim now that grapes seem to rule the Council"
"Grape people whinge about the price they are getting. Tough mate."
"Toughen up, growers, and get over it because a lot of locals are over you"

Thanks Neil.

Orchard Rite fans vanish yet again

Crikey, when will they make up their mind?

Waaaay back in September 2008 it was reported that an Orchard Rite fan that had what looked to be a suspect bent blade.
Then in February 2009, the units disappeared.
Then in April 2009, they showed up again.

Well, earlier this year (I'm going to estimate end of January), they disappeared again.
Where do they go every year?
Annual migration?
Holiday?
Scheduled fan re-bending maintenance?

Hearing of Submissions on the Use of Wind Machines for Frost Protection

For all you submitters, by now you will have received your information pack that will direct you to the hearing where you can listen to the arguments for and against the proposed changes to the District Plan for the use of frost fans.

The start time is 9am on Monday the 22nd of March.
The venue is the Marlborough Emergency Operations Centre on Wither Road.

If you want to be heard in support of your submission then you will need to be at the venue at 9am on the Monday so that an appropriate time can be scheduled. If this is difficult, contact Mark Caldwell at the Council. (520 7400) He should be able to assist with timing and scheduling.

If you simply want to see what is going on or to wave the flag, this is also an appropriate time to attend. It will give you an idea of the length of the proceedings and some of the characters involved. (chances are there will be a few :)

Common sense prevails in preventing Frost Fan legislation

No, sadly I'm not talking about the upcoming MDC frost fan hearings (on the 22nd at the Marlborough Emergency Operations Centre on Wither Road, 9am start).
Instead, alert readers will remember the article outlining the intransigence of a specific vineyard owner in respect of the alarming noise his fans were producing. The situation was so dire that the local body was having to draft legislation that would impact on all other growers.
Well, what do you know, it looks like common sense has broken out and the stubborn owner has been convinced to replace his fan with a modern quiet model.
As a result the imposing legislation has been dropped and everyone can go about their business.

Now there's a lesson there.
If the winegrowers in general were to recognise that there was a problem and apply a bit of commonsense to make sure that their colleagues were not going about and generating an unreasonable amount of noise, then this entire fiasco with rule changes would not even be happening and they would find themselves better off. Heavens forbid, they would probably be in a better position, since they wouldn't be coughing out lawyers and consultants fees left right and center and they may even find that they are taken a bit more seriously by the Council.
The alternative is that they are seen as intransigent 'dogs in the manger' to whom the only possible response is legislation.
So be it.