enviorment weather

Wind power generation is coming to Antarctica with a small wind farm to be built to provide power for Scott Base.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters says three turbines will be developed in partnership with Meridian Energy.
Funding of $320,000 a year will be in next month's budget for building and operating them.
Mr Peters say the wind farm should reduce fuel consumption by nearly half a million litres a year, and will produce enough power to make Scott Base self-sufficient.

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As many as 20 wind turbines could be erected in Antarctica to serve the New Zealand and United States research stations.
New Zealand operates a joint logistics pool with the United States' Antarctic programme because both research sites are nearby on Ross Island.
Funding of a project to build three wind turbines at New Zealand's Scott Base was announced by Foreign Minister Winston Peters' office at an International Polar Year Function in Wellington last night.
Mr Peters said substituting renewable energy for existing fossil fuel use was a way of reducing environmental emissions and the environmental risks associated with getting the fuel to the bases.
Diesel and other fuels needed to be brought in by tanker through lanes in the sea-ice.
Antarctica New Zealand chief executive Lou Sanson said the NZ project would cut consumption by about 463,000 litres of fuel, or 11 percent, every year on Ross Island.
This would effectively reduce greenhouse gas production by 1242 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.
"This is a significant reduction in the carbon footprint on the world's most pristine continent," Mr Sanson said.
The turbines will be built by state-owned generator Meridian Energy, whose director of development, Ken Smales, said the project had been investigated since early 2005.
Site works for the project would start in November with plans to have the first stage fully operational by the end of February 2010.
Further developments with the potential to reduce power plant fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at McMurdo Station and Scott Base by up to 50 percent are under investigation.
A Ministry for the Environment manager, Paul Irving, who visited Scott Base to help develop the proposal for a wind farm, said the proposal could ultimately result in more than 20 turbines supplying power to both bases.
This farm would halve New Zealand's reliance on diesel for power and heat – a major step towards making the nation's activities on the ice more sustainable, he said.

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MetService forecasters have issued a Special Weather Advisory for southern Fiordland, Southland and Otago, as a wintry blast approaches. A cold front is forecast to bring strong southwest winds, squally showers and hail to the Southern Alps and southern districts.
The MetService says driving conditions may be slippery and winds will probably reach gale force in exposed areas.
By evening, snow showers are likely to lower to 600 metres in southern Fiordland, Southland, Otago as far north as Lake Wakatipu, and the Dunedin hills.


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Meridian Energy's proposed Mokihinui dam, north of Westport, could cost Buller around eight tonnes of whitebait a year, says the West Coast Whitebaiters Association.
Chairman Jim Bushby said whitebaiters were worried the dam would reduce the main species of whitebait caught in the Mokihinui, koaro.
He said 80 percent of the eight tonnes of whitebait caught in the river last season were koaro.
"The koaro go up into the mid reaches of fast flowing rivers and spawn on the sides of the river when it is in flood.
"The water subsides and when it is next in flood the eggs hatch and get washed out to sea."
Mr Bushby said koaro spawned in the area of the dam site, "and of course if you put the dam there, they are all going to disappear".
He said the association would oppose Meridian's resource consent application. "The fight is about to begin."

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Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton


Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton has refused to name the Maori-owned fisheries companies he has accused of plundering the oceans.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia today challenged Anderton to name the companies, but he declined, saying it would not be productive.

He said responsibility for sustainable fishing was necessary from Maori, Pakeha and foreign-owned companies. There had been convictions for the illegal dumping of fish and evidence of further dumping which undermined the entire fisheries management system. Anderton has been in a war of words with many in the fishing sector as well as facing legal battles over his attempts to reduce catches. Turia told MPs that Anderton had lost the confidence of the industry, but he was unrepentant The fisheries resource was very fragile and he had to take a cautious approach to its management, he said.

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A survivor of the lightning attack that killed an Auckland man and injured four others, says she acted on instinct to try and save the victim.
The riders were on a hunt near Dargaville when the lightning storm struck.
Sharon Kerwin felt the lightning strike with a painful jolt to her head.
"It felt like I was just getting an electric shock in my head," Sharon Kerwin said. "Basically thinking 'god what's that'. The horse spun around then I saw the man on the ground with his horse."
Ms Kerwin was one of five riders hit and injured, but she ignored her own injuries and let her emergency training take over and performed CPR on the man until further help arrived.
He died despite their efforts and Kerwin, along with three others, were later treated for minor injuries at Whangarei Hospital.
The man's name has not been released because he has family overseas. He was one of 85 riders in the annual Northland hunt.
"He was a man who was pretty special to a lot of people," Donna Austin from the hunt committee said. "He had been in the hunting scene for some time and has made a big impact in people's lives."
The hunt organisers say they checked the weather and their only concern yesterday was rain when they set off.
"About 20 minutes into the ride of course that all changed with this incredibly intense lightning storm," Ms Austin said. "We know what the outcome was."
The ride stopped today for a rest day, but organisers say everyone will be back on their horses tomorrow. They say the dead man would have wanted them to continue with final two days of the event.

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An international expedition that has kayaked around the world's seven continents has highlighted the impact of climate change in Antarctica with the help of a Kiwi adventurer.
Hokitika's Graham Charles travelled with the Larsen ice shelf expedition in Antarctica - the final leg of a worldwide environmental study taking an up-close look at the impacts of global warming on the great frozen wilderness. New Zealand adventurer Graham Charles has the dubious distinction of spending more time in a kayak around the Antarctic Peninsula than anyone else - that made him a "must have" for the final instalment of American Jon Bowermaster's 10-year-long Ocean’s 8 Project that has literally paddled the world.
The goal was to explore the world’s oceans and coastlines one continent at a time - the primary mode of transportation would be sea kayaks.
But their primary cause for concern in Antarctica was global warming
Graham Charles: “Just finished 48 hrs of the biggest rain storm I’ve ever seen in Antarctica. It never used to do this - it always used to snow. If this is a manifestation of global warming its affects are being felt far and wide.”
Even the slightest climate variation on the fragile continent can produce devastating consequences.
Graham Charles: “Here on Petermen Island on the Antarctic Peninsula it's been a very late spring and these guys are only just hatching now. It's going to be a hard road for them to hope to get big enough to last the first winter storms - it smells quite a lot too.”
World renowned explorer Skip Novak on board the expedition was also taken a-back by the amount of ice breaking away from the continent
Skip Novak, explorer: “I was surprised looking out in every direction how many big pieces of ice there were obviously looked like glacial bergs carved off the peninsula here and very little sea ice and small bits it was mainly big stuff as far as the eye could see.”
The Ocean's 8 Project is all about raising environmental issues - Charles and his fellow explorers hope it has so that threats to places like the fragile Antarctic ecosystem are reversed.
Graham Charles: "We've nosed the yacht into an ice flow and jumped off and spent the afternoon playing frisbee and just enjoying this incredible wilderness and piece and quiet that is down here – absolutely, absolutely incredible.”

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