Just how is the community going to benefit from Oceana Gold's mine expansion when it is going to be left with "three pits filled with contaminated water"? asked panel member Cr Duncan Butcher yesterday.
Macraes Gold general manager Bernard O'Leary was giving supplementary evidence when Cr Butcher put the questions to him in relation to earlier evidence the panel had heard on the company's proposal to create a $2 million community trust instead of continuing with the heritage art park it promised during its original consent hearing 20 years ago.
Cr Butcher said the art park was part of the conditions of the previous consent but it appeared the company wanted to extend that "mitigation" measure across to the new consents.
If the extension was consented, the community would be left with a large pit that might be filled with contaminated water in 150 years.
The pits that were, under the original consents, to have been filled in and covered with grass and rocks would now be open and filled with water that "was contaminated", he said.
"I can't see why we, as a consent panel, should spread the mitigation originally for work that was to finish in 2012 or 2014 ... across the new consent process."
How did the community "in any way benefit" from that, or get any greater benefit out of "three pits containing contaminated water"?
Mr O'Leary, the last Oceana Gold witness to give evidence, said the company would think about Cr Butcher's questions and reply in its closing address.
The hearing moved on to submissions from the public yesterday, allowing Cr Butcher to put his concerns about the trust to Macraes Community Incorporated chairman John Harvie.
"Is $2 million a fair amount for the inconvenience of the community?" he asked.
Mr Harvie said he saw value in the trust but it had divided the community, and he believed it was "probably not" a fair deal.
Many in the community believed the money was what was meant to be spent on further artworks for the art park.
While $2 million sounded like a lot, it could disappear very fast, considering Stanleys Hotel, which the mine was offering as part of the trust package, required $900,000 of refurbishments, he said.
Mr Harvie was also worried about what would happen once the mine left.
"There needs to be something so there is money for the maintenance of things that have been put in."
Moonlight resident Neil Roy said it was totally inappropriate to blame the local community for the failure of the heritage and art park.
Oceana continued to shirk responsibility for the park not coming up to expectations, he said. He believed the company was using the consents as a way to "rid itself of heritage obligations".
The extension plans also raised concerns about odour, noise and lighting impacting on the community, he said.
He also believed the proposed realignment of the roads would cost road users.
Kati Huirapa Runaka ki Puketeraki and Te Runanga o Moeraki requested that a Manawhenua Consultative Group be established as a condition of the resource consent, to allow for timely consultation on the effects of mining.
New Zealand Historic Places Trust heritage planner Jane O'Dea said the trust supported the project as long as its concerns about sites known as Robinson's Farmstead, which would be destroyed by the extension of Frasers pit, and the Duke of Edinburgh Trench were addressed.
It proposed the trench be fenced off, the farmstead site be recorded and excavated by archaeologists and any materials salvaged and stored.
The hearing continues on Monday.
Oceana Gold hearing - Day 4
• Applicant: Oceana Gold
• For: Resource consents to extend the life of the
• Macraes Mine Panel: Otago Regional councillors Louise Croot and Duncan Butcher
• Submitters: Oceana Gold: Ryder Consulting director Greg Ryder, Macraes Gold general manager Bernard O'Leary; New Zealand Historic Places Trust heritage adviser Jane O'Dea, Department of Conservation (counsel Pene Williams, RMA planner Bruce Hill), Moonlight resident Neil Roy, Macraes Community Inc John Harvie, Kati Huirapa Runaka ki Puke teraki and Te Ru nanga o Moeraki.
Macraes Phase III Project
• Close existing mixed tailings impoundment and southern pit impoundment.
• Construct a new tailings storage facility called Top Tipperary.
• Construct a new dam on Camp Creek for water storage.
Mining Round Hill - Southern Pit
• Continuation and expansion of Frasers Underground Mine.
• New waste rock stacks and extensions to existing rock stacks.
