Gus McHardy has had a gutsful of living near what he describes as “gateways to hell” and he’s not alone as his neighbours on Centennial Dr in Taupō battle Contact Energy over the company’s testing of geothermal wells in the semi-rural area.

McHardy said for the past seven years Contact Energy had been expanding its Tauhara geothermal network, but since the company built four new geothermal wells around his property he’s come to the end of his tether and wants the company to buy his home so he can move on.

Late last month, Contact Energy began testing geothermal production wells for use at its Te Huka Power Station on Centennial Dr and as part of the commissioning process had been conducting one-off, five- to seven-day well flow tests.

The tests ran day and night for almost a week and locals said the noise was so bad it shook their houses constantly, leading to sleepless nights, and that large plumes of steam were dropping silica deposits damaging their homes and vehicles.

“I’m surrounded by these things ... whatever’s in the steam is corroding everything steel, as well as the paint on my house and my cars,” McHardy said.

He said he had asked Contact to buy his house, but the company declined his offer.

However, Contact had paid for his vehicles to be cleaned a number of times and had offered to put him and his neighbours up in the Hilton Hotel during testing.

The company said the tests had ended and were “committed to reducing the hassle and inconvenience before, during and after our testing”.

Wilma Foster lives about 100m down the road from Gus’s place and said the testing had shattered the peace and quiet of the area.

“It’s not the calm lifestyle I came up here for,” she said.

“The windows were rattling, cups were shaking in my cupboards, and you get this fear of the plume coming over your house dropping silica that damages everything – paint, cars, windows, roofs – it’s totally unpleasant.

“At one stage they had bright lights shining into my house all night, it was lit up like daytime.

“I've come home and thought that Gus’s house was on fire because it was completely covered by steam, I couldn't even see it.”

McHardy and Foster also questioned the consultation process for the project as well as Contact Energy’s communication with residents.

A Centennial Dr resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said his house shook for almost a week and said the noise from the wells reverberated throughout his property.

“The noise and the shaking was unbelievable.

“But we are little fish in a big ocean, there’s not much we can do. You don’t really get any straight answers from them,” he said.

Two more Centennial Dr residents said they also had issues with the wells but declined to comment saying they didn’t want to make the situation worse.

Contact Energy’s geothermal resources and development general manager Mike Dunstall said the company were sorry for the inconvenience caused and had made every effort to include residents in the process.

“We are also planning a hui with neighbours following on from this test. We are listening to concerns, and we want to talk about ongoing mitigations, explain more about the testing and share what we have learnt,” Dunstall said.

”Down the track these production wells need to be tested around once a year, for 24 to 48 hours.”

He said Contact had been in touch with residents in advance of its testing, done letter drops, set up emailing lists, an 0800 helpline, held face to face and online meetings with residents, and offered all residents the option of staying in a hotel.

“These offers to meet were accepted by most neighbours and Contact people have visited and spoken to residents during testing.”

He said the noise and vibrations of operational wells were particularly hard to predict prior to testing.

“For this particular well, we installed a bund to reduce noise and vibrations part-way through the testing as we realised the noise and vibration impacts were more significant than we had anticipated.

”We check weather forecasts for wind direction and throttle back the venting in case of strong wind blowing in the direction of residential houses.

”We reduce the well flow overnight and this has greatly reduced the impact on neighbours when we have been testing other wells. However, we acknowledge that this has not been as effective this time around with the flows evident in this well.”

Credit: Stuff.co.nz