Mark Chrisp. PHOTO: ODT FILES A $50 million fund, set up to provide cash for a trust to rehabilitate land at the site of the Santana Minerals goldmine when it closed, brought more questions than answers yesterday. The final day of one-day hearings by the fast-track panel considering the Santana Minerals mine covered planning matters. Planner Mark Chrisp, appearing for the applicant, outlined the details of workings of a trust which would be funded by Santana Minerals to work on land when the mine closed after it had extracted all gold. Mr Chrisp said the company would start contributing $5m in year six of mining and then would contribute $5m every year until it got to $50m. Santana Minerals chief executive Damian Spring said there would be 10 years of gold mining and another couple of years of winding down the mine and tidying up the site, which meant it could start in year six of operation. The trust would establish water treatment facilities and rehabilitate land. It would establish a trust with trustees appointed by various stakeholders. The goal was to get a 5% return from the $50m and that would cover the running costs of the maintenance and running the land. Panel chairman Matthew Muir KC wondered if the 5% return was too optimistic. There was discussion between planners how the $50m would be used as a bond while the mine was in operation. Questions were raised what would happen should the company simply walk away at the end of the mining or the bond had to be used. Panel member Gina Sweetman said the trust funding and bond process was quite complex and there needed to be conditions around it. She was looking forward to hearing some advice around how it would work. Mr Muir said planners were meeting next week and would workshop the issue, and report back to the panel. Having no social impact report for what a $4.5 billion goldmine will do to the local community was called out yesterday, but the miner said there was already enough information for it not to be needed. Sustainable Tarras planning witness Sylvia Allen said she was really surprised no social impact assessment had been done. The Clutha basin was not a typical part of New Zealand and all aspects of life were different from what occurred in a city. She said a baseline was needed and questioned what check points were needed, and the environmental impacts. There was nothing in the conditions for the community and the consultation carried out by Santana had not been analysed for the panel. Mr Chrisp said there was an attempt to produce a social impact assessments report but it did not come to anything and was not done well. When the hearing took place in Cromwell, Mr Chrisp said people who appeared in Cromwell knew nothing about a report being done which showed it was not being done well. He had worked on a project for a waste to energy plant in Te Awamutu. It had drawn major opposition with 3000 submissions, was beside a dairy plant but did not require a social impact assessment. Mr Chrisp said he had worked on many major projects over the years and only one — a prison — had a social impact assessment report. ‘‘There is going to be an influx of between 320 and 500 jobs from this mine which pales into insignificance around all the other fast-track proposals we were getting around Central Otago in the next three years,’’ Mr Chrisp said. There were about a dozen housing applications for the fast-track panel in Queenstown, Wānaka and Cromwell areas, building more than 12,000 houses. ‘‘The panel has enough information to make a decision around social impacts.’’ Mr Chrisp said the mine would be above ground and involve the use of an open pit. The gold to be extracted was near the surface, so it was easiest to do it in the open and not underground.
