The revelations about OceanaGold have sparked dismay from environmental organisations. A campaigner for 350 Aotearoa, Adam Currie, said the fast-track consent process was "not needed nor helpful" and OceanaGold should shut down.
"They should pack up and pay the real cost of toxic waste they leave behind. They are affecting the climate globally and locally and we need to be doing everything we can to reduce emissions."
OceanaGold’s poor environmental compliance at its Macraes mine in East Otago was revealed in an audit by the Otago Regional Council (ORC).
The audit found "continued or repeated non-compliances" with several resource consent conditions that required environmental monitoring between 2019 and 2024.
There were 29 occasions of a water quality limit being breached. A sulphate limit at one location had been breached for seven consecutive months to May 2024.
The sulphates had come from "seepage" from the mine’s Top Tipperary tailings storage facility, a large area to the east of the mine. Contaminated waste from the mining process, comprising crushed rock and chemicals — collectively known as tailings — is kept there behind an embankment.
Water testing during the audit also found breaches of maximum algae levels, with no acceptable plan in place to stop it, and declines in macroinvertebrates compared with control sites.
OceanaGold senior vice-president of legal and public affairs Alison Paul said the company had taken actions to "identify and rectify acknowledged issues with our sampling and reporting systems". The company had been working with the ORC to improve both.
However, in a separate interview with the Otago Daily Times undertaken before the release of the audit, Ms Paul also said the company had no global target for reducing its overall carbon emissions.
The company has a "carbon intensity" target to reduce by 30% the amount of carbon it releases per bar of gold it produces. However, its overall carbon emissions could continue to rise because the company plans to increase mining operations globally.
The company has four mines at present: Macraes, an underground mine at Waihi, a mine in the Philippines and another in the US. Ms Paul said the company had started looking into a global carbon reduction target but there was a risk it would "stop the company growing and we don’t want to stop growing".
Ms Paul said the two New Zealand mines produced about 100,000 tonnes of carbon a year, the majority from Macraes. About two-thirds of the emissions were from diesel use and the rest from electricity.
She said the Macraes mine had "disturbed" 1800ha and owned 13,500ha. The company was looking at planting trees on some of the undisturbed land but plans were not yet in place and it was unknown if this would be native trees or pine plantations.
Macraes has protected by covenant about 800ha and moved some lizards to those sites from areas earmarked for mining. However, Ms Paul said some protected areas had suffered incursions from farm animals.
Ms Paul stressed gold mining was making export money for New Zealand and employing people and was no different from other markets.
"I don’t see gold as less worthy as something to manufacture than a pair of jeans ... The market will be what the market will be and right now the market for gold is a good one.
"I see the impact of the mine every day and I think it is a good impact, so that for me is enough ... It is about making money for New Zealanders, which in turn buys the hip replacements that two of my friends need so badly right now.
"I don’t think reducing our export income in this country is going to be helpful to us adapting to climate change."
Regarding water quality, she said "as long as we are complying with the law, which we are, I am satisfied with water quality too".
Forest & Bird regional conservation manager Chelsea McGaw said OceanaGold’s attitude to carbon emissions was "gut-wrenching. It makes me really angry. OceanaGold may have thought they have struck gold, but what they’ve actually struck is a huge blow, by destroying biodiversity and making considerable contributions to climate change".
Ms McGaw said McCraes’ relocation of lizards and consideration of tree planting was "greenwashy".
"Nature is incredibly hard to replicate once taken away ... and if lizards were meant to be somewhere else they would be".
