Coalmining feasibility tests allowed

Press, 17 December 1984, Page 22

Coalmining feasibility tests allowed

PA Hamilton The Ministry of Energy has won water rights for further ground water pump tests for its planned coalmines at Ohinewai, north of Huntly. Approval — subject to 28 days appeal — was granted by the Waikato Valley Authority after receiving a 52page document, recommending they go ahead from its tribunal which last month heard five days of evidence. The Ministry has said that it wants to do the pump tests to establish the feasi-

bility of mining coal under Ohinewai peat farmland and low hills set aside for New Zealand Steel. Sensitive about criticism over earlier pump tests, the authority appointed a staff member to act as its fulltime project co-ordinator, and authorised the same tribunal to act as a monitoring committee. Conditions give the authority power to cancel the water rights at seven days notice, and to stop the pumps when subsidence or water outside a 50-metre well-head zone, reaches 15fr

millimetres. To monitor settlement, an elaborate monitoring network is required before pumping starts, three kilometres in radius with ground level markers scattered every 250 metres. Maximums are set on the volumes of water pumped and rights expire 180 days after commencement. Discharged water will be treated and monitoring information supplied to the authority. Authority members scored an additional condition that the Ministry sub-

mit a contingency plan ensuring immediate alternative water supplies to farms if farmers lost their usual sources during the tests. The tribunal said that its ability to impose suitable conditions on the rights would prevent any significant detrimental effects on the adjacent farms and to the ecology of the area. It accepted that the monitoring of previous Ministry tests had been poorly controlled and inconclusive, with some blame laid on the authority itself.