No smiles about mine plans for Central Otago
Cutting through the Dunstan mountains above the Clutha River, Santana’s opencast gold mine will open pits a kilometre wide and hundreds of metres deep (Opinion ODT 9.6.2025).
The unlined tailings dam will hold tens of millions of tonnes of toxic rock and water slurry containing cyanide, arsenic and heavy metals.
Seepage from this toxic sludge dam will be catastrophic for downstream communities of life: fish, birds, other wildlife and people.
That Santana isn’t willing to have a bond to cover the tailing’s dam failure, or even long-term monitoring, should be a real worry to everyone living downstream.
I am appalled to see a recent photo of all these paid employees of Santana smiling. If this opencast gold mine goes ahead, you will poison us all.
It’s thuggery
Are we prepared to regress further into environmental thuggery by allowing opencast mining in Central Otago on what is widely accepted as an iconic property.
Are we prepared to allow a destructive legacy to proceed? If so, wouldn’t we be failing to appreciate much deeper and lasting qualities such as true worth, emotional values, moral values and the importance of longer-term thinking?
If this form of thuggery is not judged as a crime, then are we accepting the continuation of all living things being led further down a deep dark hole?
Observing ‘that’
RNZ reporter John Gerritsen’s article (ODT 5.11.25) report quoting Principal’s Federation president Leanne Otene’s claim that: "effectively state schools don’t have to observe that any more [‘that’ being local tikanga Māori; te reo; Matauranga Māori and Treaty obligation) and without a clear obligation schools will be pressured by extremists to delete Māori from the curriculum in school programmes".
That such an untrue claim has been made by such a key, supposedly informed, educationalist is concerning.
Both the minister and associate minister of education state: "Under these changes, school boards will retain the choice to teach as much tikanga, Matauranga Māori and te reo as they like".
Parents may demand that a full immersion Māori programme be part of a compulsory core. However, it may well turn out that the majority of parents demanding that the full Māori immersion subjects must be part of the option subjects such as French.
Green light
Thumbs up to whoever altered the pedestrian lights on the south side of the High St/Stuart St intersection beside the Law Courts Hotel.
The short five-second phase for the green man immediately the south-flowing traffic halted was an accident waiting to happen.
I use this crossing regularly and frequently. I have witnessed large truck and trailer units running the yellow light.
By the time they had cleared the intersection the green man had turned to red.
The new system, which releases the right-turning traffic exiting Stuart St into High St before the green man appears, is much safer for pedestrians. Well done to whoever made the change. The same system could be introduced to other similar intersections.
Questions remain over tohu whenua costings
Re the article in the ODT (15.10.25) which Dr Robert Hamlin queried the $141,544 cost of installing the cultural markers (tohu whenua) along Otago Harbour, I would be grateful if the mana whenua-owned consultancy firm Aukaha provided us, the ratepayers, a detailed time and materials breakdown of the $100,310 charged for its contribution.
The remaining $41,234 is relatively easy to quantify due to steel work, site preparation, heritage contribution, etc. However the consultancy aspect once again smells of gross overcharging by an independent council contractor. Further to this, it worries me that the Dunedin City Council chief executive Sandy Graham justifies this grossly inflated expenditure by saying it is a reflection of the ongoing commitment to incorporate Kāi Tahu values into our environment which suggests it will be ongoing. I hope the incoming councillors can drill down and rein in this significant waste of ratepayers’ money.
[This letter was referred to Aukaha. It declined to respond. Editor.]
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: letters@odt.co.nz
