Six months ago, the West Coast Regional Council resolved to set up a working group with the industry and work on a set of standard consent conditions that would simplify and speed up the application process.
But the issue popped up yet again as an unresolved action point on the to-do list of the Environmental Management Committee meeting in Greymouth last week.
Cr Allan Birchfield — a veteran goldminer himself — said he would like to see progress on getting it sorted.
"We’ve got a major problem with consents being held up — I see one of the consents [in the quarterly report] has taken two years and you’ve only processed 12 mining consents in three months.
"The gold price today is over $8000 an ounce.
"There’s a lot of gold out there, huge potential and this council is holding the Coast back because you’re not processing the consents."
Alluvial gold mining had been around for 50 years and the council should have been able to set some simple conditions, Cr Birchfield said.
"We’re not reinventing the wheel ...
"We should be able to get it down to a very basic consent and get them issued. But they’re taking years and it’s not acceptable."
Council chief executive Darryl Lew told the meeting one of the hold-ups in coming up with a simpler set of conditions had been difficulties in setting up a working group with the miners.
"We tried three times to pull together a group and three times it’s failed. Cr Birchfield, if you could assist in getting a group together to work with us that would be very welcome."
Cr Birchfield said he had heard Mr Lew’s previous criticism of the consultants used by miners to apply for consents, but they rejected that.
They would be quite happy to talk to the council, he said.
Mr Lew said the previous council chairman Peter Haddock had tried a few times to get a group together and it had not happened.
"We don’t want to develop these standard conditions and just issue them; we want to do it with the industry rather than to the industry.
"We realise many of the alluvial gold miners know their business very well and what will and won’t work and we’ve got to make sure [the conditions] are practical."
There had to be changes to the way alluvial mining was regulated 30 years ago, but the council did not want them to be inefficient, or to prevent mining as a legitimate business, Mr Lew said.
Cr Andy Campbell asked what impact the RMA reforms were likely to have on mining consent conditions.
Mr Lew said the details were still unknown, but indications were that basic matters like dust, noise limits and discharges into waterways would still need resource consent.
Cr Campbell said it was largely a matter of simplifying the resource consent application system, not letting everyone do as they liked.
Cr Coll noted the new Te Tai Poutini Plan was a step in the right direction in terms of having mining precincts, but alluvial mining operations varied greatly in scale and complexity; standardised conditions would still have to provide for that.
Council chairman Cr Colin Smith — attending his first environmental management meeting — said he supported Mr Lew’s suggestion that the council try to get alluvial mining leaders together with the council and work through pragmatic consenting arrangements.
Cr Peter Ewen said it was important that miners in the working group should reflect the industry.
"It shouldn’t be a deputation of the disgruntled. There are consent holders out there quite happy with the council," he said.
The West Coast’s resource consent fees were the lowest in the country and compared very well with Central Otago’s for gold mining , Cr Ewen said.
The meeting approved a suggestion by Mr Lew and staff for the council to ask Minerals West Coast manager Patrick Phelps to organise a group of miners and consultants to work with the council.
If there was no progress, the issue should be taken to the full council, members agreed.
• LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
By Lois Williams
