The decision to approve the Waihi North Mines project announced today is a crime against the environment and our communities.
It’s the first private profit FastTrack Mine decision and it legitimises more toxic waste, more damage to biodiversity and more profits will head offshore. The Waihi North project includes the first underground mine on conservation land at Wharekirauponga which includes blasting and vibration under sensitive land and species and threatens the forest through dewatering and subsidence impacts. The company admits they have 9 more years of exploratory drilling before they start mining at Wharekirauponga which shows their use of the Fast Track law was premature.
Under the Fast Track we were able to comment but not to seriously challenge the range of risks this project presents to the environment and the future. We see this decision as a disaster for our region and its future.
The Fast Track process as currently designed has allowed ourselves and tangata whenua a limited opportunity to make comment. The Panel gave little weight to our concerns and assumed that the applicant mountain of evidence is evidence of robust environmental protections. The assumptions around water, land subsidence, economic returns and biodiversity are based on weak data and the conditions rely on the offset of damage rather than protection from damage.
We have no faith in the evidence of the company that they can impact on at-risk rare species and make up for it by some pest control down the road. We have no faith in the data they presented about the protection of fresh water in the underground mining situation when they have no base lines to establish safe water standards. We also have no faith in the economic mantra of jobs which omitted a proper regional and national cost benefit analysis of gold mining. We can have no confidence in the ability of the tailings dams to last in perpetuity or the proposed bonds to pay for any collapse of these cyanide and heavy metal laden waste which risks the future of Tikapa Moana ( the Hauraki Gulf).
We are also worried about the effects of dewatering under a forest and fire risk if soils and forests are affected by drought and underground water depletion; where is the fire plan for this remote area?
We engaged with the draft Conditions of the Consent and it was clear that the concerns of our 16 experts have been ignored along with the serious cultural issues raised by iwi.
Scientist Marie Doole from ‘Mātaki Environmental’ said there are “meagre checks and balances in the Act”; a “blizzard of management plans” with the risk of harm if monitoring is not robust. At a time when the local authority responsibilities and planning laws are in flux, the last thing we need is a huge mining project in sensitive land and few local government experts able to monitor properly.
We will keep fighting this project – and the growing gold rush of greed affecting Hauraki Coromandel and other parts of the country!