BULLER URANIUM CLAIM

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28231, 20 March 1957, Page 12

BULLER URANIUM CLAIM

Mining Professor’s Application

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, March 19.

An application for a uranium prospecting warrant covering 8000 acres in the Buller Gorge area was recommended in the Warden’s Court, Westport, today. The applicant was Professor G. J. Williams, Dean of the University of Otago School of Mines and Metallurgy. The claim was recommended subject to the consent of the Ministers of Mines, Forests, and Lands by the Warden for the Karamea mining district (Mr H. J. Thompson). Professor Williams’s original application was for a 10,000-acre claim, but the area was amended to 8000 acres. The hearing of further applications for uranium prospecting claims.by Mr Robert Searle, involving 26,320 acres, were adjourned until April 16.

Professor Williams said last year that Tie had lodged his application on behalf of a powerful overseas, mining organisation. Mr Searle has been reported to have an association with the influential Rio Tinto Mining Company, which is interested in the Buller deposits. A number of newspaper articles have suggested that Professor Williams and Mr Searle are both acting on behalf of the Rio Tinto organisation. The total area involved in both applications is about 34.000 acres, or about 53 square miles.