US mining giant's reign of terror Booms create bust in Waihi - by Andy Hatton Andy Hatton is the secretary of Ohinemuri Earthwatch, a Hauraki environmental group which has, with support from Coromandel Watchdog, successfully hindered mining expansion in this area, south of the Coromandel no-mining zone. He has had a lengthy involvement with the Martha Mine in Waihi. He began writing about it in the Waihi Gazette in 1987. He attended the entire seven week hearing for the mining licence application representing three residents living on the side of Martha Hill. During the construction of the mine he worked for an engineering company building the crusher and conveyor systems for the project. He has subsequently been involved in numerous resource consents and water rights hearings, related to mining in Waihi and the greater Hauraki. For the last seven years he has been a reporter for the Waihi Leader, the town’s weekly community tabloid. In 1995 he won the Katherine Mansfield Award for non-fiction. When 27 Waihi homeowners were evacuated from their residences, in December 2001, the Waihi Gold Mining Company did not even stop its blasting programme long enough for them to return to their homes for their possessions. These people were moved from their houses, by police, after a large crater had appeared adjacent to the company’s operations. A house falling into this crater had the two Kilgour children in it who were rescued by volunteer firemen. The house next door had an 84-year-old woman living in it. Mrs Cornthwaite was never able to return to her home and died a few months later. The company, usually calling itself Newmont Waihi Operations, denies that it has any effect on these old workings but generously donated $5,000 to a mayoral fund set up to help these affected people. Historical Subsidence Cited Early in 1999, when the mine was still owned by Australian company Normandy Mining, a 40m diameter x 20m deep crater had appeared on the side of Martha Hill, in a public park area on the main street a few hundred metres from the town’s central business district. Fortunately there were no people in the area. Because a subsidence happened in the same place in the early 1960s the company, supported in its lie by Hauraki District Council (HDC), cited historical subsidence and refused to accept any responsibility. It generously offered to adjust the size of the open pit to "clean up" this hole. The Council wrote the company a letter thanking it for its help in providing security and clearing up this regrettable nuisance created by old mine workings. Thus a precedent was set. With this big lie, the Council and central government have allowed the operations to incrementally devalue homes and lifestyles, thus allowing the company to buy up on its own terms. In the days prior to both these subsidence events, townsfolk noticed abnormally large blasts from the explosions that are a daily part of the mine’s operations. Mayor Incites Public Unrest At a public meeting called by Council, in Waihi’s Memorial Hall, people concerned for their safety and well being and their homes’ stability and security, were shouted at and threatened by miners and supporters of the project. Mayor Basil Morrison stage managed the meeting to create the illusion that anyone with concerns that the mine’s operations were having a major effect on the land in Waihi was, in fact, an "anti-miner" with no other agenda than to shut the mine down. When a loud cheer went up from mining supporters, out in force, he described it as "the mouse that roared." The global mining industry, a mouse? Government Shuns Technical Working Party Subsequent to the first subsidence the Council set up a technical working party to investigate old mine workings in the residential area. This did little and a request to the Government to have a delegate on it was turned down. After the second event, in December 2001, it set to work and later HDC released a PR company-produced glossy information booklet. This identified underground workings including stopes, which are large excavated underground caverns, bigger than large auditoriums. Millions of litres of water have been pumped from beneath Waihi since mining recommenced in 1988. Hundreds of residents are living in a zone above old workings, which the company is daily shaking and dewatering. Council set about moving many of these people from their houses by serving them with warrants under section 70 of the Resource Management Act (RMA), saying their homes were unsafe. The Mayor and councillors made a big show of being caring and concerned for these people. The Earthquake Commission uses taxpayers’ money to arrange inadequate settlements for them. The company very generously "tops up" some of these payments. Big Blasts Continue Lately, many blasts over the consent limits have been felt and it is reasonable to believe that the company would see a lot of merit in perhaps blasting another house down a hole and having a large area of town evacuated for it again, effectively making the residents refugees in their own country, as was the case after the 2001 subsidence. Waihi people live in fear and have little redress through Council because the company is taking no responsibility. There is a definite multiplier effect coming from the mine’s production spending in town but how come there has never been an independent economic report to prove the truth of the reality of its financial input? How does it measure up against all of the ratepayer and taxpayer-funded infrastructure it has shagged? It has wiped out Junction Road, the main road in from the Coromandel, Morgan Street, Bulltown Road, Brickfield Road and part of Savage Road. Hauraki District Council Finally Takes Action The February 2003 meeting of the Hauraki District Council’s Planning and Finance Committee saw councillors dealing with the issue of non-compliance with blasting restrictions and conditions at the mine. Committee Chair and Waihi Ward member, Mary Carmine, expressed concern that the Martha Mine had "never been consistently within consents". Concern about what it perceives as an increasing trend in blast exceedances has prompted Council to accept the report of the Planning and Environmental Manager, Andrew Chaplin, which recommended that Council advise Newmont Waihi of its obligations to alter its work practices, so that permitted vibration levels are not exceeded, and to state that the frequency of incidents of blast exceedances in December 2002 and January 2003 was unacceptable and must not be permitted to continue. Exceeding noise and vibration levels has been part of the mine’s operation since it reopened in 1988. Mr Chaplin’s report identified three specific incidents where the 5mm/sec limit was exceeded. Newmont has explanations such as "waterlogged, fractured rock led to an accentuated blast" or "the company suspected that longer boreholes accentuated confinement and blast velocity and has no record of a complaint." On Tuesday December 17, 2002, at 10.51a.m, came the legendary "big blast". The monitor in Islington Terrace logged a record 21.13 mm/sec; at Pitt Street it was 17.49mm/sec and at Grey Street, it was 7.42mm/sec. The mining company advised that this large blast resulted from a human error which led to 149 blast holes firing simultaneously, followed seconds later by the instantaneous firing of another 183 blast holes. On Wednesday January 22, 2003, at 2:40pm a 5.59mm/sec blast was recorded at Pitt Street. "The company and its contractor should not be entertaining repetitive blasts exceedances like these", Mr Chaplin’s report advised Council. Legal advice to Council officers recommends that legal action should only be taken if the company exceeds the limits "as a matter of general practice". Councillors voted unanimously to accept the recommendation. Many in Waihi feel it is too little too late but at least some wheels are finally dragging into motion. Mayor Basil Morrison was not present at this meeting, as he was attending a conference in South Africa in his capacity as head of Local Government New Zealand It’s worth noting that Transit NZ has spent $150,000 on realignment work on Kenny Street and Barry Road, the State highway in from Whangamata and the Coromandel Peninsula. Council has spent $500,000 on roadworks and $400,000 relocating pensioner housing. An expensive drilling programme not far from the town’s central business district has also been carried out at the ratepayers’ expense and the information that is a result will be shared with the mining company. The company over the years has also bought out impacted residents and then sold their homes on to people with a proviso that they don’t publicly complain about the mine’s negative effects. The destruction of housing has also caused, unsurprisingly, a serious shortage of rental housing in Waihi. Close The Mine! The mining company has wiped out infrastructure and threatened people’s lives and refused to take responsibility for it and ratepayers and taxpayers are picking up the tab. People who spent years developing their homes, with cottage industries, have been forced to sell, and people are still living in fear because they know they are on (literally) shaky ground and have to live with it being shaken daily by the mine’s blasting and knowing that it was only good luck that the Kilgour children and Mrs Cornthwaite weren’t killed (in December 2001). How do they feel when they go to bed at night? And a smarmy turd working for the Earthquake Commission and Newmont telling you the offer could be withdrawn and if your house is condemned you’ll get nothing. It’s a fascist conspiracy between the Government, Hauraki District Council and Newmont Mining.If the mine is about progress and growth then why has Waihi got more closed shops that comparable towns such as Otorohanga, Taumarunui, Te Kuiti, Woodville and Paeroa? Why hasn’t there ever been an independent economic impact report done to verify the alleged millions that are pouring into Waihi? And surely for all the housing we have lost how many plumbing jobs aren’t required? Painting? Gardening? Whiteware sales, TV sales, lawnmower sales, car sales. With these households no longer existing, the consumer and rate paying base shrinks. Ohinemuri Earthwatch seeks the mine’s closure, it’s a dinosaur industry and shouldn’t exist. As we’ve seen from the results of Brother George’s Iraqi sabre rattling, the price of gold hasn’t leapt sky high, so even war won’t save it this time. Ohinemuri Earthwatch can be contacted at 43 Bradford Street, Waihi; e-mail: a_hatton@hotmail.com ----------------------------- History Two generations had grown up in Waihi since the closure of the old mine and the hill had become a unique nature reserve. Throughout the 1980s a joint venture of companies involving giant American mining transnational corporation, AMAX, NZ’s Green & McCahill and others, clearly expressed an intention to mine Martha Hill. Through a public liaison forum residents had their fears allayed about the impact of such an industry onto a largely rural and agricultural and residential environment. The company stressed that it had no interest in further mining, other than Martha Hill, because it was such a mother lode. There were environmental impact reports, environmental impact audits, huge tomes. Assurances were made and reiterated throughout this process that the company had no intention of further mining, and so the project would be a limited, environmentally friendly affair. Artists’ impressions of the crater lake left after the mining were touted, showing a lagoon and a beach and the tailings mound re-grassed and with kiwifruit vines growing on it. The end of mining was predicted to be 2001. Many property owners made plans based on this. The Planning Tribunal hearing for this took place at the Waihi Court and lasted five weeks (spread over five weeks, from January to March 1987). This court of law was presided over by Judge Shepherd assisted by Messrs Catchpole and Dart, who were qualified in environmental and planning matters. The Mining Act and the Town and Country Planning Act were the relevant laws pertaining to this procedure. The mining company’s lawyer, Rob Fisher, led a team of expert witnesses through their spiel of how the gold mine would work and why modern day gold mining doesn’t pollute our waterways. The Tribunal concluded in its report to the Minister of Energy "That it has no recommendation adverse to the grant of the mining licence, the subject of application no. 322388." The mine was built in nine months, making a mockery of projected multiplier effect figures, which went with the promised 18 months’ construction period in the hearing. The first gold pour in May 1988 was accompanied by a huge toxic spill of cyanide slurry into the Ohinemuri River, which flows through the mine site. The mine was in its early stages of operation but already the company was seeking variations to water rights, trying to get hours extended for work within the residential area and to truck mine waste from old workings (one of the most environmentally friendly aspects touted by the company would be the lack of big trucks going through town because the electrically powered conveyor would do the job). By 1990 the company had most of the town covered by prospecting licences, which saw drilling rigs working in the Waihi South School playground. In 1992 it applied to build a huge tunnel, which required a variation on the mining licence, planning permission from the HDC and water rights variation from the Waikato Regional Council. There was an enormous amount of written resource material to get through and a great deal of work was done by lay people and submitters. Strings were pulled in high places to get a passport for Mark Daniels, the then secretary of the environmental group, Ohinemuri Earthwatch, to travel to Melbourne to visit a sewer tunnel which was a comparable size to the one proposed for Martha Hill. The company claimed it was a better transport option and that it had no designs on the gold but its previous prospecting application for Union Hill had given away the game (Union Hill is Waihi’s other "hill of gold", and was mined extensively in the past. Unlike Martha Hill, it is not currently being mined. Ed.). The original tunnels hearing, which was one of the country’s first, if not the first, under the RMA, was abandoned when Mr Fisher withdrew the company’s case after Mark Daniels called into question the dubious nature of the proceedings (the company was a little vague as to whether it would be building one or two tunnels and the chairman of the RMA committee was Hauraki District Mayor Basil Morrison, an unashamed apologist for the industry). Consents for the tunnels were granted by a commission headed by an independent commissioner but the company chose not to follow through. Later on the company re-introduced the liaison forum, which was used as a shadow play (this body was set up by AMAX and its joint venture partners, in the 1980s, to give the illusion that the planning process had involved the community). It said that it had a huge amount of tramp material, old steel rails and wooden props etc. from the previous operation. It wanted to be allowed to truck this out on the roads. That was important to the company, as this old material was jamming on the conveyor. Now it must have known that it would encounter old mine workings. While this issue was being discussed at length at the forums, the company was secretly with the Council planning its expansion, as early as 1994. The Council did not have independent commissioners on the panel for hearing the expansion consents. There were also three Waikato Regional Councillors on the commission, and one of them, Rodney Luxton (brother of John Luxton, the former National Cabinet Minister) wrote an article in the Regional Council’s newsletter, saying that he felt that all the lay people’s submissions against the expansion were a waste of time and ratepayers’ money. Subsequent to an article about this in the Waihi Leader, he resigned from the commission. Permission to expand the open pit, along with the removal of a number of Waihi roads and buildings, was granted. After an appeal process, heard by Judge Bollard, work began in 1998. Non-Members:
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