As community concern about the planned fast-tracked open-pit gold mine in Central Otago grows, two urgent public meetings have been organised in Dunedin and Wānaka next week. Organisers have confirmed that there is already strong interest in both meetings.

The meetings, in Dunedin on Tuesday 17 June and in Wānaka on Thursday 19 June, will include a panel of expert speakers to lay out the known facts about the fast-tracked gold mine, take audience questions and discuss what the community can do. The panelist line up is being announced later this week.

Suze Keith, chair of Sustainable Tarras Inc., says that there is a broad spectrum of issues people are very concerned about. “From the information released so far, there are numerous very worrying issues” she said. “These include the size and scale of the mine right in the heart of an Outstanding Natural Landscape, the massive tailings dam which will hold 10,000 olympic swimming pools of toxic waste, and the extensive use and storage of large quantities of cyanide just upstream of the Clutha River. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Santana Minerals, an Australian company, is preparing its full fast-track application to file in June this year, and aims to “strip the landcover by 2026.” Despite numerous requests for details and meetings, Santana is not being open and transparent with concerned locals. “They’re not providing us information we’re reasonably asking for, and which we know they have got.”

Advertisement - scroll to continue reading

She said that local communities are just coming to grips with the scale of the mine. “Even the cyanide-leaching processing plant will be 130m wide and a kilometer long. The mine will involve an estimated 200 million tonnes of waste rock and 13 million tons of toxic tailings. These numbers, and the likely impacts and risks, are mind-boggling.”

The mine is also getting attention from people who are concerned that the fast-track process is being used inappropriately for a project which is not about public infrastructure or community benefit, but rather is solely about extraction of resources and maximising shareholder profits, most of which will go offshore. This mine would become the largest single earthworks in Otago since the Clyde Dam could be approved without the general public having any right of input into the proposal.

People interested in attending meetings in Dunedin or Wānaka can register to find out more and secure a seat at www.bit.ly/notmine2025. The meetings are free to attend, but numbers are limited.

Key, high-level facts we know about the planned mine so far:
There is a lot of detail behind each of these points

• Santana Minerals is proposing to establish a giant open-cast gold mine along Thomson Gorge Road in the Dunstan Mountains, Central Otago.
• The mine would be located on land zoned as an Outstanding Natural Landscape in the Central Otago District Plan, and in a conservation-covenanted site.
• The site is highly visible from other locations in the upper Clutha basin, including Hawea, local highways and from the air.
• Four open pits are planned, the largest 1 km wide and 200-300m deep.
• Santana further proposes a tailings dam 2 km wide holding the equivalent of 10,000 olympic swimming pools of toxic waste.
• The mine will also require a cyanide-leaching processing plant 130 m wide and 1 km long.
• The mine will involve an estimated 200 million tons of waste rock and 13 million tons of toxic tailings.
• Under the Fast-Track Approvals Act 2024, Santana is looking to file its full application with the EPA in June 2025.
• Santana claims it could be stripping the landcover by 2026.
• The mine would be the largest single earthworks in Central Otago since the Clyde Dam and could be approved without the general public having any right of input into the proposal.
• Santana Minerals Limited is an Australian company. If given the green light, it hopes to attract international investment partners to fund its proposal.
• Santana asserts high profits over a ten-year period, though no account has been taken of losses to be suffered by local industries such as viticulture and tourism, or the environmental costs.
• Locals are widely opposed, and see the mine as a destructive and unnecessary incursion on the area’s virtues.

© Scoop Media