Roads - The fuel excise we as users of the roads pay, IS for the maintenance of roads. Irrespective of how KIPT uses the roads, they pay taxes. The more they use it, the more in taxes they pay. All primary producers on the island incur wear and tear and quite possibly farmers on the island, who utilise the roads for farm machinery and commercial vehicles, are doing even more damage as a collective over a 25 year timeframe. You can't take the taxes and then claim the roads should be maintained by the company privately, otherwise Southern Ocean Lodge should pay for any repair of the road to their site. The argument is moot, users pay via fuel excises for road maintenance, government via planning departments maintain the roads
Wood Chips - as a general rule of thumb, after 100km the economics of forestry break down due to the high cost of trucking. It's uneconomic to ship wood off the island via ferry to a distant port. A port will be built on the island, within 100km of the forests because it's more cost effective over the life cycle than barging. The problem is, there aren't many suitable sites. If the abalone farm thinks it's been harmed commercially, they can do what everyone else does and take KIPT to court for economic loss.
Finally, KI only survives because of subsidies, imagine if we used the arguments against KIPT, in the context of subsidies for the KI ferry (islanders should pay for their own subsidies) and health and education (everyone should go to the mainland for their services because the services are expensive to run). Just as the islanders expect equal access to services, so should they expect KIPT has an equal right to export their product in a reasonable and efficient manner
KPT Price at posting:
$1.96 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
