Slack practice by Solid Energy pollutes Herbert Stream BCG/F&B complaint mobilises top brass
I went up to Stockton yesterday at the invitation of mine manager Mike Lynn. Three Solid Energy (SE) chiefs, CEO Don Elder, Barry Bragg and Mark Pizey, had choppered over from a meeting in Ch. Elder said they broke off their meeting specially to investigate the Buller Conservation Group (BCG)/Forest &Bird (F&B) report of the pollution of Herbert Stream which drains into the Waimangaroa River.
We went to the site which is a large dam on the route of the Mt Fred diversion drain. Over the years the dam has filled with sediment, (mostly coarse sand, some coal fines) and they were lowering the diversion drain in order to de-water the dam.
In order to lower the drain, they needed to cut the water off. This they'd done by simply cutting a chunk out of the drain wall. The polluted water fired off down Herbert Creek.
When we were up there on Saturday this water looked dirty, with a lot of coal fines suspended in it. Yesterday it looked pretty clean, but I pointed out that any water draining open pits and rock stacks will have a very low pH (3.4) and be contaminated with toxic metals leached from the crushed rock. The low pH alone is enough to kill all life in Herbert stream - previously healthy and drinkable.
I’d been previously told by WCRC CEO Colin Dale that SE has a resource consent to discharge "stormwater" into Herbert Stream. Compliance officer Andrew de Fou was on site with us and told me the consent dates back to 1987. I said that seeing it hadnt rained for 6 days it would be stretching things to define the water polluting Herbert Stream as stormwater.
I was surprised when Don Elder said he wasn’t that concerned about whether or not they had consent. He agreed with me that the water would be contaminated and said SE should not be sending such water into a healthy stream.
We went back to the workshops for a meeting and Elder said SE is embarking on a big clean up project. He said the company is now the subject of protests - he noted the one in Ch two weeks ago - and the whole coal mining operation is at risk if SE does not clean up. He thanked me (!) for alerting them to the pollution event and told his assembled Stockton managers that he wasn’t there for a 'witch hunt' but wanted to see a whole new approach to mining. He said the NGOs including Ngakawau Riverwatch would be welcome to come up and be shown around - they would show us the good the bad and the ugly, including some bad things we wouldn’t even know about.
Of course BCG and F&B haven’t had time to consider all this, but personally I think we have little option at this stage but to take SE at face value and see what they come up with. I told them that we'd had a bad experience with Timberlands who said they'd clean up their act but instead tried to hide it with PR, which was ultimately disastrous for them.
Mike Lynn said he has a particular interest in cleaning up the Ngakawau R. He now lives in the township of Ngakawau.
I said that the big job for SE will be to win the trust of Ngakawau Riverwatch, since they are local residents, some are mine workers and ex-mine workers, and they not only live in the townships, but they know everything that goes on, far better than the other NGOs.
So a field trip/meeting up the hill is planned for some time in the next few weeks.
A question mark over all is this is the role of Westport Regional Council. Will they start defending the environment, or will they still be rushing around trying to protect the polluter?
BCG wrote to the Council a week ago asking them to monitor the many major and minor leaks of polluted water that pour out of drain and dam walls into the Upper Waimangaroa River, minute by minute, hour by hour. We want data on flow rates and testing for the full range of pollutants including all the toxic metals.
I hope the Council doesn’t just put this back on SE to do, because in the final analysis there must be on-going independent testing of all the creeks/groundwater issuing from the Stockton mines. NGOs can’t do this because of cost and access - we've done it once and it cost us heaps. The Regional Council is set up to do this work under the law and they must be forced to do it.
