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The country has witnessed some environmental disasters in the past through the lack of regulations and government controls and one of the worst was the old Tui mine, which is only just starting to be cleaned up. The furore the Government has set in motion over Schedule 4 land mining has also raised the ugly spectre of the old Tui mine on the outskirts of Te Aroha township, which has been easy ammunition for anti-mining fanatics since it was abandoned almost four decades ago. Located on the slopes of Mt Te Aroha near the town of Te Aroha in the Waikato region, the Tui mine was a small underground mine that operated for a couple of decades in the late 19th Century and again between 1967 and 1973 during a period when the country’s environmental regulations were laissez-faire to say the least. The mine produced a concentrate containing copper, lead, zinc, and small amounts of gold and silver that was exported for refining. The consortium, operating as Norpac Mining, went bust after Japan refused to accept any more concentrate because of mercury contamination and the mine closed in 1973 and the site abandoned soon after, leaving underground mine workings and processed rock (tailings). The mine continues to leak metals into the local streams through natural weathering. Like the current leaky home crisis, successive governments have argued over responsibility for its clean-up and, until recently, little progress was made. The Tui mine was approved under the 1926 Mining Act that was being reviewed while the mine was operating. This Act had no requirements for mine site rehabilitation, in common with practices at the time. There was no environmental or planning legislation in New Zealand then. The Mining Act 1971, that did require mine site rehabilitation, came into effect in 1973, shortly before the Tui mine closed. No one was responsible for the site. Several agencies including the Mines Department and local authorities carried out limited repair work, but the controversy over the site continued. In the late 1990s the NZ Minerals Industry Association advanced an initiative to have the Tui site rehabilitated. It engaged with Environment Waikato, the Matamata–Piako District Council and the community. Although no NZMIA member created the problem, member companies proposed solutions such as burying the tailings, shifting them to an approved disposal site, or finding a use for them. Association member and environmental consultants URS New Zealand began evaluating the options at their own expense, from which work, funded eventually by Environmental Waikato, the final rehabilitation plan was chosen. Nine years later, the Tui site plan was approved under the Ministry for the Environment Orphan Site cleanup fund. On May 29, 2007 the government announced it would cough up with $9.88 million to fund the clean-up project over two years, for completion in 2010. The rehabilitation project now under way involving the Ministry for the Environment, the regional and district councils and the Department of Conservation (that administers the land) aims to stabilise the sites and control water contamination from oxidation of minerals in the mine workings and the tailings deposit. The site may then be used for public recreational purposes, with vehicle access and car parking. The Minerals Industry Association says there have been no mining operations under the pre-1970s mining legislation for many years and it is now routine for regional and district councils and (on DoC land) the Minister of Conservation, to require bonds and insurance sufficient to pay for the completion of an approved rehabilitation plan should the company fail at any time. “For large operations like the hard rock gold mines these plans, and the adequacy of the bonds and insurance, are reviewed regularly. At critical stages in a mine’s operation this coverage may be 10s of millions of dollars. “If an operation can’t bear this cost it cannot go ahead. This ensures that the operation, not the public, will bear the cost if a company fails in the future.”
Q&M Vol.7 No.3 June-July 2010 |