Coast gold seen as milling alternative

Press, 14 August 1980, Page 22

Coast gold seen as milling alternative

The significance of smallscale mining for gold on the West Coast was considerable because of the urgent need to provide alternative work to counteract the decline of the sawmilling of native forests, Mr J. B. McCarty, of Consolidated Traders (Mining), Ltd, of South Westland, told the seminar. Conservation pressures, often inaccurate and highly emotional, from the Native Forests Action Council, the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, the National Parks Authority, . national park boards, the Nature Conservation Council, the reserves section of the Department of Lands and Survey, and the “greenies” in the Forest Service had resulted in increased stumpage rates and a selective logging policy that had boosted the pinus timber industries of Canterbury and Nelson at the expense of the West Coast

Native Timber Trade, he said.

“Not only is there a need to find employment for some of the men affected but there is the benefit of obtaining a .local workforce used to hard work in adverse conditions and one with a proud record of industrial harmony,” he said. The potential for smallscale mining with earthmoving machinery and mobile pumps was also considerable for although all the easy gold had been won quite a few smaller areas were left because there was no water available above water-race height or because there were no efficient dewatering systems ' suitable for wet alluvial ground.

The black-sand leads on the coastal beaches, .were also a renewable asset , because it seemed certain that erosion in the mountains was still carrying gold out to sea and thence back on to the beaches. Beach sands that had been worked by hand for almost a century were now returning loz to 80yd with machinery. The constraints on smallscale mining were similar to those . hampering the native sawmilling industry.

“In fact those same bodies, with the assistance

of the Ministry of- Agriculture and Fisheries, Department of Internal Affairs, and Customs Department, crawl out of the woodwork with monotonous regularity to oppose any attempts by private enterprise to provide employment, pay taxes, produce, and even, with luck, make a profit," said Mr McCarthy. “Very few members of these departments and conservation groups have any conception of the cold, hard world outside. Those pressure groups in the larger areas who have stuffed their own environment in pursuit of the almighty dollar jealousy resent our ability to live with our environment and at the same time use it without the need for locks, keys, or security services.

“It has been my exper-ience-over the last four years that if mining applications are correctly presented the Mines Division and the Commission - for the Environment process them quickly. But unfor-' tunately applications which have to go to other departments. likely to object seem to get lost for long periods: three ' years for the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to study a salmon-spawning stream is the record to date.”