New Mining Coming To The Coast?
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- Опубліковано 26 жов 2024
- Over 600 metres about sea level just north of Westport, the Denniston Plateau is a wild, windswept stretch of land renowned for its breathtaking views, rare carpet canopy of herb fields, wetlands and low-lying flora and extraordinary wildlife - huge forest weta, giant flatworms, spotted kiwi, skinks and geckos.
It is also home to valuable hard coking coal used for steelmaking.
After mothballing its open cast Escarpment coal mine on the plateau in 2016, Bathurst Resources is now looking to expand and open more mines on this land.
Local feelings are mixed.
“Mining has been the backbone of the West Coast,” says Heath Milne, chief executive officer at Development West Coast, in his home inland from Greymouth. “Not just the economy but the identity.”
Triple the mining, says Barrytown Flats resident Suzanne Hills, chair of Forest & Bird’s West Coast branch, “and we might triple the environmental destruction. We don’t have to keep both feet firmly in the past of extractive industries.”
Under the planned Fast-Track Approvals Bill and amendments to the Resource Management Act, extractive activity is poised to increase on Te Tai Poutini, but social licence - the public acceptance of a commercial activity - is not a given.
Next to the Denniston Plateau, Stevenson Mining’s proposed Te Kuha open cast coal mine is promising about 58 full-time-equivalent jobs and provide $9 million in royalties.
But the project would decapitate part of a highly visible ridgeline and destroy, says Hills, a “beautiful ecosystem.”
“This mountain is iconic West Coast untamed natural wilderness - no roads, no tracks, it has value pretty much on par with an offshore sanctuary island.”
The application has gone all the way to the Supreme Court and been declined at every step, “but unfortunately,” says Hills, “it looks like it’s going to be part of the listed projects attached to the Fast-track Bill.”
Milne agrees it is a controversial mining proposal - “I don't know if it’s going ahead” - but any mining, he says, will have some impact on the environment.
“If you do it in the right way the benefits outweigh the negatives. In the past the rules were different but I believe we have a very strong regulatory environment and the oversight is just unbelievable.”
Increasingly, mining companies are coming under pressure to implement reforestation programmes. Close to the historic mining town of Reefton, the former OceanaGold open pit gold mine is a surreal landscape of decade-old mining structures, waste rock and thousands of young seedlings. “We disturbed 260 hectares of land,” says OceanaGold environmental advisor Megan Williams. “At the end of the closure project we will have planted over a million beech and manuka seedlings and tens of thousands of wetland seedlings. Then people will be able to walk or bike around the site and enjoy what modern mining has left behind.”
But even with the help of surrounding beech forest, says Hills, full ecological restoration will take decades.
It is not only coal and gold driving the push for new mining.
Further south, Australian company TiGa has been given the go-ahead to mine 63ha of mineral sands on the Barrytown Flats for ilmenite, used in white paints and coatings, and garnets.
The land, says Milne, has already been developed for farming. “Now it’s going to extract some of the heavy minerals out of it and put it back into farmland.”
But interfering with a complex wetland ecosystem is not so straightforward. There are concerns over freshwater quality, the risks posed to nocturnal Westland petrel (TiGa has agreed not to run ore vehicles at night), and the impact of at least 50 extra truck movements on State Highway 6 between Westport and Greymouth, recognised as one of the top 10 coastal drives in the world.
The Coast Road Resilience Group, of which Hills is a member, has lodged an appeal with the Environment Court.
Back in Reefton, Australian company Siren Gold is looking to mine gold alongside antimony, a silver-white metalloid used in electronics and military equipment.
Again, locals are divided.
“I’m scared what will happen if it is mined here and it gets released into the waterways,” says one.
“It’s a mining town,” says another. “We wouldn’t exist without mining.”
But mining is not the major employer on the Coast.
According to Infometrics, while mining produced 8.4% of GDP on the West Coast in 2023, mining jobs accounted for just 3.8% of the workforce, well below agriculture, fishing and forestry at 11 percent.
And what happens to all that mining wealth? asks Hills. “I suspect most of it has gone into offshore private pockets - there hasn't been long term enduring public good benefits.
“Nature is our biggest asset on the West Coast. We need to be really careful about the choices we make going into the future.”
Attributions:
Department of Conservation
Forest & Bird
Neil Silverwood
Lauren Kelley
Rod Morris
Oceana Gold
Historical photos: West Coast New Zealand History
What wonderful reporting. If only our national media could perform in such an impartial way.........
So it seems like there were two key points there that the industry could not address, and make the whole thing fall over in my opinion. The benefits are short term and the majority of the profits are heading off shore, while the environmental impacts are left for the NZ public to deal with.. Are there statistics on how many of the jobs are filled by non locals?
If the demand is there for coal, why hasn’t that first mine started up again? I live in Dunedin and it’s frustrating to see the lack of industry on the South Island, and I’d personally be okay with mining if the people that live there actually benefit from it, but it sounds like these guys are trying to pull a fast one.
Great overview; thanks!
Excellent work, thank you.
The truth - the money goes offshore. NZ does the scrub work and clean up work. The trucks destroy the roads and a few people make some money. Incredibly short sighted.
As with the coal put it on rail. Save the roads and keep me in a job by using rail :)
great presentation of both sides. stupidest argument was suggesting we need big mining trucks to fund our roads.... cray-cray
Excellent balanced reporting. Thanks.
It's not about the resource being taken. It's ALL about the polluting of the world. That belongs to ALL of us. Thank God for ever sharing.
Mineral sands are old beach, river or dune sands that contain concentrations of the important minerals, rutile, ilmenite, zircon and monazite and also contain radioactive thorium and uranium. You need to be very careful that mineral sand tailings do not contain concentrate harmful substances
Sounds like the mineral sand already has harmful substances in it and the miners are removing them.
I’d feel conflicted to post negatively from a phone that’s been created from far, far worse practices.
Beautifully produced and excellent balance and framing of arguments, all the best.
Government needs to go heavier on the huge international mining companies, get them funding local infrastructure to pay for the damage their trucks will cause, whether that's new roads and bridges or teaming up with KiwiRail to get new branchlines built. We also need to be taking bigger royalties from them. 9 million a year from a coking coal mine is pissing in the wind. Said coal is worth over 400 NZD a tonne, and they're paying about $30/t to rail it to Lyttelton.
Mining could be hugely lucrative for New Zealand, but previous governments either let the money slip through their fingers on its way overseas (National) or prohibit it outright (Labour). Neither solution is correct. The west coast should have the best schools, roads, railways, bridges, and buildings in the country. But decades of mismanagement have left it a backwater.
If we go without the mining, there isn't enough freight traffic to keep the Midland Line open between Christchurch and Greymouth, only 3 trains a day through summer, and 1-2 in winter depending on the day.
I have just spent a week in Brisbane at a business conference.
Australia is busy,profitable,vibrant and a fun place to be.
They have no issues digging money out of the ground.
The recalcitrant attitude of successive govts here in NZ has turned us all into slaves to Australian banks.
I would welcome mining anywhere in NZ,but with a control on which company/companies are involved.
Mining is money for the good of all NZers.
I feel sad for NZ. Our choices seem to be pretty slim.
Great Journalism thank you!!!
If the profits go off shore and NZ only gets a few seedlings as our profit.....Yeah Nah....If the profits are reinvested in New Zealand...yeah sure.
Looking forward to protesting if this goes ahead.
100%
Why on earth should we let Australian mining companies profit from the destruction of our very few remaining natural environments? The vast majority of people in this country do not understand just how significant human destruction of natural wildlife habitats has already been here. We have already destroyed as much as 80% of native forests since the arrival of humans in Aotearoa. We cannot afford to interfere with even 1% more. Source: I am a student of Sustainability at the Ara Institute of Canterbury. I am not making this up.
I’ll smoke a cone if you do
😂 being a student at Ara doesn't make you an authority, it makes you a disciple of ideology.
@@slooob23 going to school is not unusual. Who told you it was?
@@djldjldjl where did I say it was unusual? Are you another ideological convert about to tell me that up is down?
I did it anyway
If wasn't an overseas company I would say yes !
Incredibly shortsighted to mine the West Coast again. Can’t get work? Move out if need be, we all make compromises in life.
Nz owes so much money to overseas interests,mainly China, so yes open season had been approved
Is there a NZ mining company? There are NZ entities that could supply the funds. Iwi for one
Extraction isn’t in the past, where do you think you get every single thing you use from? Extraction
I am a NZ First voter. Torn really. Yes mining is needed but I actually don't like the idea of ruining nature. Is there a way around mining? Could we mine another part of NZ?
If we stopped using coal are carbon emmissions would drop. All the other efforts matter little until we stop mining and using coal. You can't mitigate destruction. Nor carbon emmissions.
Only behalf of us locals on the coast who are actually locals. If you don't live here or benefit us in anyway. Please don't put your two cents in and tell us how we should be living and working
Now go look on Google earth . The Mines are not as large as she states . Infact the urban develop throughout nz does more damage and will never be returned to nature . And note she says she suspects way too much . That means she doesn't know what she is stating as fact .
Urban developments on brownfield sites/sites with little ecological value is completely different to pristine forest with high ecological value. Also destroying a years old trees and planting is not comparable. Mining is definitely possible and there is a fine balance but you also don't know what you're talking about lol
@@budde007 Lmao I do do my research I work in the environmental field. You're mentioning plenty of examples of ecosystems that have had historic anthropogenic clearing which is true. However, it doesn't mean it does not support our native fauna. Plenty of the "rubbish" in canterbury supports plenty of our native lizard species. Also this video and what I was addressing is the forests in the west coast where it isn't pure rubbish. Theres a difference between large scale mining in the West Coast vs in the Canterbury plains. Regardless, they both hold ecological value to a certain degree
Thieves
f and b have to much to say
keep droping 1080 garbage
Do it. Stop telling the coasties what to do
Get a life!
We all need a job!
New Zealand can show the way to have both
nature and industry!
People who live far away in their politically correct and saleried positions need to wake up to the fact you have your wealth because of people like us and use of OUR ( the countries) resources
Compromise is the only way forward!
We can't rely on markets and tech solely!
We are a small player on the world stage!
We need to spread our currency streams widely!
So this can only be achieved by using our natural resources wisely
Gold and minerals(no so much coal) insulate an economy as a bedrock
We need to wake up as a nation and decide what's best for us!
Wealth and employment!
Or blowing on whims of a few at the expense of the prosperity of the rest!
No money returned to community, all profit taken offshore. Residents have a "job", but do they have a career?
But who actually profits? It sounds like wealthy investors take the majority of the profits, while a handful of locals on minium wage get a pay packet for a couple years.
Lol we want jobs but simultaneously don't want any new employers in the area
mine the gold..never mind the tree huggers ..the country is broke...were the most conservated country on eath..
That is not true. Where did you source the infomation to support that statement? New Zealand's natural enviroments are given the bare minimum of conservation efforts. Many foriegn countries believe that we have great conservation but this is simply not true. It is only marginally better than elsewhere.
@@henrygilbert3798kinda hippy nonsense is this?
@@snigie1Neanderthals wasting precious oxygen, go have a swim in a tails damn mate on a gold mine ...pretty please preferably in the goldfeilds of WA, leave our whenua alone for Gods sake
@@henrygilbert3798 When the pakeha came here they denuded land like no other..so why is it different now...we need jobs,,
And the royalties are how much again? Basically nothing lmao