Late mining objections may be heard

Press, 10 January 1981, Page 18

Late mining objections may be heard

Late, objections to prospecting licences applications lodged just before Christmas would be considered “sympathetically,” the minister of Energy (Mr Birch) said, in a Press Association report from Wellington. The Mining Act stipulates a 21-day period for filing objections after the application is advertised publicly.

But there have been claims the objection time covers a period when many interested parties are away and legal offices are closed. In one case brought to Mr Birch’s attention, Amax Exploration (N.Z.), Ltd, had applied for a prospecting licence over a large area of the Kaimai-Mamaku forest park,, in the Bay of Plenty, and the notice was advertised on December 24. Mr Birch said that late objections could be considered if the objector could show that his failure to file an objection in time was not wilful. A similar controversy has arisen in Otago, where a Iwlding company for Consolidated Gold Field Australia, Ltd. has applied for a gold prospecting licence covering about half the' Otago Peninsula.

Notice for the application was published on December 20, the day after the Mines eDivision’s Dunedin office closed for the holidays. The 21-day objection period will have expired be-

fore the office re-opens on Monday. Two geologists from the company were in Wellington on Thursday to work on aspects of the application, along with two other exploration applications in the North Island.

One of the geologists, Mr Paul Mckibben, said that the company would be prepared to accept an extension to the objection period.

“I don’t know that we would.seek it, but perhaps if the people in the area feel that the period is insufficient, I don’t think we would object to giving them a fair chance to air their views,” he said. “We don’t want to give any indication that we are trying to press this through by unfair tactics.” The company is looking for low-grade. hard-rock gold deposits, and requires a tonnage of more than 151 million tonnes containing'

two grams of gold a tonne as a minimum requirement for mining. “We would hope to find something substantially bigger,” Mr Mckibben said.

He said he had not visited the area yet, but he was aware, of the environmental sensitivity of the peninsula, and he said that bird and wildlife reserves would obviously have to be excluded from mining activity. The chances of the exploration licence proceeding through the prospecting stage to mining appear to be small. Mr McKibben said that about one in a thousand areas explored are eventually developed into a mining venture.

The Save the Otago Peninsula committee has lodged two objections against the exploration licence. Ecology Action (Otago) has also lodged an objection.