Huriwaka Wind Farm, Manawa Energy 

PDP was engaged by Manawa Energy to undertake a Preliminary Site Investigation (PSI) of a large piece of rural land in the Central North Island for potential contaminated land matters. The project envelope is to be developed into a wind farm, which will comprise of up to 59 wind turbines, with a maximum capacity of 300 MW located across a 15 km2 area.

The purpose of the PSI was to assess any actual and/or potential contaminated land issues associated with the current and historical use of the site. To inform the PSI, PDP completed a review of publicly available information, such as Council property files and HAIL reports, historical aerial photographs and existing environmental reports. A targeted walkover of the site was then completed with the purpose of visually assessing the features of interest noted during the desktop review and further communications with the current landowners and occupiers took place to further clarify site observations. Using this information, a conceptual site model was established to assess the source-receptor pathway linkages that may be complete during proposed soil disturbance works. The PSI report summarised the findings of the assessment and was prepared in accordance with the NES-Soil Regulations and Contaminated Land Management Guidelines No.1.

GIS tools were integral to the success of this project, as PDP staff were able to readily review georeferenced historical aerial photographs against the project envelope area and enable field information to be recorded with accuracy via a Field App which was specifically designed for the project. The ability to cross check against historical features of interest was critical when assessing such a large site. GIS tools also enabled efficient review and timely updates to the report in response to changes to the project envelope area.

This project demonstrates PDP’s capability to conduct large scale PSIs for the energy sector and development of bespoke GIS tools to streamline data collection and enable efficient information review across a large spatial extent.