Natural Capital Central Otago, an Upper Clutha-based group, this month launched a campaign saying the mining company’s fast-track application presented a high public risk for a low public return and was a bad deal for the region.
Santana Minerals chief executive Damian Spring rebuffed the claims, saying the group’s website contained several false statements, misleading claims and fabricated credentials.
Among his concerns was the leading expert the group cited, Steven G. Vick, had been misidentified as a "professor".
That claim was repeated by the Otago Daily Times in its coverage of the group’s launch.
"Mr Vick’s published position is a probabilistic statement about failure likelihood over multicentury timeframes using 20th-century technology," Mr Spring said.
"It is an argument for better engineering.
"It is not a prediction about any specific dam during its operational life.
"That distinction was erased."
Mr Vick is not a professor, but he is one of the world’s leading experts on tailings dam failure.
He is the author of Planning, Design, And Analysis of Tailings Dams, published in 1990.
He has been an expert panellist for reports on the failure of the Mt Polley tailings storage facility in British Columbia, Canada, in 2014 and the failure of the Fundao tailings dam which killed 19 people in Brazil in 2016.
Mr Vick’s biography in the report on the Mt Polley tailings failure describes him as "a leader in the field of dam engineering", and his 1990 book was described as "the only text of its kind that has remained in print for over 30 years and is familiar to most experts in the field".
Natural Capital Central Otago acknowledged this week they had made a mistake with Mr Vick’s credential, picking up the title "in error, from the OceanaGold fast-track application for the Waihi mine".
The group removed the title of professor while saying "if Santana is focused on people’s titles and not substantive issues being raised, we’re right to be concerned".
Mr Spring further disputed the group’s claim that 78% of the value of the gold from the proposed Bendigo mine would go to an Australian mining company.
"That figure appears in no Santana public document, no regulatory filing and no independent economic analysis.
"It has no stated methodology. It was reported as established fact. It is not."
In response, Natural Capital Central Otago said the 78% figure originated from their analysis of a 2025 report commissioned by Santana Minerals.
Of the $6.75 billion estimated value of gold in the mine, $1.522b (22%) would be paid to New Zealand in the form of royalties and corporate taxes.
"The fact that Santana is arguing that this — or anything remotely like it — is a good deal for New Zealand, should have fellow Kiwis very worried indeed," a Natural Capital Central Otago spokesperson said.
