Pike River Re-entry
Minister Responsible for Pike River
Re-entry
Pānui
Pāpāho
Media Statement
21 May 2019
More than eight years after 29 men went to work at the Pike River Coal Mine and never came home, the promise to re-enter the mine drift has been honoured.
In the presence of families, experts from Te Kāhui Whakamana Rua Tekau mā Iwa-Pike River Recovery Agency completed breaching the 30m seal and successfully re-entered the Pike River mine drift. Previously scheduled for 3 May, the milestone had been delayed following a false oxygen reading from a failed sampling tube.
“New Zealand is not a country where 29 people can die at work without real accountability. That is not who we are. And that is why today we have fulfilled our promise. Today we have returned,” Minister Responsible for Pike River Re-entry Andrew Little said.
“The tragedy that took these men’s lives was the consequence of corporate and regulatory failure.
“Fulfilling the promise to do everything possible to safely re-enter is an act of justice for families who have waited for far too long.
“It is because of the families’ tireless efforts that future mining tragedies might be prevented.
“There is still much to do. We must find out what happened at Pike River. However long that takes, the recovery project will be done professionally.
“Most importantly, it will be done safely. Safety is the families’ and the Government’s bottom line. This was demonstrated when we delayed re-entry earlier this month.
“Today’s milestone belongs to the families and to the memory of their men. It also belongs to all New Zealanders, who know that going home to your loved ones is the least you should expect after a day’s work,” Andrew Little said.
Video and photographs of the re-entry have been released by the Stand With Pike Families Reference Group at www.tinyurl.com/190521pike
Background
The 2.3km
drift tunnel has been sealed 30m from the portal entrance
since November 2016, with double airlock doors behind a wall
of about 800mm of concrete.
Today Agency
Chief Operating Officer and Site Senior Executive Dinghy
Pattinson led Mine Deputy Kirk Neilson and Geotechnical
Engineer Chris Lee through the doors to have a brief look
inside.
After the initial re-entry, re-entry
and recovery will be carried out by three Agency teams. The
first team of up to six miners including mine officials
would enter the mine drift (access tunnel), assessing the
state of the drift in relation to ventilation, geotech and
any other hazards that may exist that will need to be fixed.
They will also have a preliminary scan for any forensic
evidence, before going back out of the portal to report
their findings to mine officials and police.
Any work to fix the drift to make it safe
will then take place, before a second
“forensically-focused“ mining team enters to carefully
examine and remove any evidential material. All exhibits
will be handed to the police for processing as soon as this
team leaves the mine and debriefs police on site.
A third team will then enter, advancing the
mining services, including gas monitoring, communications
lines and ventilation bags which provide fresh air.
The teams will advance as far as the
ventilation allows in a repetitive process, until the drift
is recovered. The last 300 metres from the roof fall at the
end of the drift may need to be examined in breathing
apparatus, depending on the mine atmosphere at that
point.
One of the first tasks is to
re-establish the 170m barrier then establish access for
vehicles including loaders, mobile roof bolting rigs that
can re-support the roof and sides of the drift. A
driftrunner will transport workers further into the mine
drift as the work progresses.
Between the 30
metre seal and the previous seal at 170 metres, there are a
few different structures designed to manage the constant
flow of water, including two weirs, gabion baskets, a
“grizzly” which screens large rocks, and concrete
blocks.
Further up the drift, past the Pit
Bottom in Stone area (inbye of), a temporary seal will be
established, to allow a thorough investigation of the Pit
Bottom in Stone area. A forensic inspection past that area
through to the roof fall will be undertaken as conditions
permit, and may need to be undertaken using breathing
apparatus.
When the drift is recovered and all
forensics work completed, the site will be remediated before
being handed back to the Department of Conservation. The
Agency will seal the drift and boreholes not required for
ongoing monitoring, and the mine will revert to its inert
methane atmosphere.
Mine
officials:
Dinghy Pattinson,
Chief Operating Officer and Site Senior
Executive
Dinghy has more than four
decades of underground mining experience on the West Coast
and in the Waikato. After 37 years in underground coal
mining, he has worked most recently in underground
metalliferous mining at Oceanagold.
In addition to
his strong mining background, Dinghy has been actively
involved with the NZ Mines Rescue Service for the past 35
years, with roles including Brigadesman, Huntly Station
Manager and Board Member.
He has numerous mining
qualifications, including Site Senior Executive and First
Class Mine Managers certificates, and a Post Graduate
Diploma in Coal Mine Strata Control from the University of
New South Wales.
As Chief Operating Officer,
Dinghy manages the operational elements of the Pike River
re-entry work programme and has responsibility for ensuring
activities at the mine comply with statutory health and
safety requirements.
Kirk Neilson,
Mine Deputy
Kirk was the last miner to leave New
Zealand’s last operational underground mine at Spring
Creek in 2017, before joining the Pike River team.
A coal mine deputy with 29 years underground coal
mining experience in the Grey coal field, Kirk gained his
deputy’s certificate of competency in 1998 and has been
employed in this position since 2002. Last year he also
passed his Underviewer’s certificate of competency, while
working for the Pike River Recovery Agency.
Kirk
is an extraction and development supervisor with experience
in gassy conditions, heavy ground and dealing with the
management of spontaneous combustion events.
He is
very focused on safety and is one of the mining team
representatives on the Agency’s Health and Safety
Committee.
Chris Lee,
Geotechnical Engineer
Chris is a Senior
Geotechnical Engineer with 17 years underground mining and
tunnelling experience.
He gained a post-graduate
engineering geology degree from Canterbury University in
2002 and underground strata control qualifications at the
University of New South Wales in 2006. He started work for
Solid Energy in 2002 and had exposure to many underground
mining operations including Terrace, Strongman 2 and Spring
Creek Mine.
Chris has extensive experience in the
development, implementation and management of geotechnical
programs in technically challenging underground mining
environments with particular reference to the management of
underground strata control hazards in West Coast
conditions.
ends