No Place for Tailings

Coromandel Watchdog of Hauraki welcomes decision by Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage to decline an application by Oceana Gold to purchase an area of rural land for a new tailings dam.

"We agree with Minister Sage that there are far better uses for our productive land than to be used as a dump for toxic waste," says Augusta Macassey-Pickard, spokesperson for the group. "The existing dam was built on productive farmland, that's more than enough area dedicated to storing this toxic sludge."

Coromandel Watchdog has always argued that one of the most negative elements of industrial gold mining is the toxic legacy left, including the vast stores of toxic waste from the extraction process.

"Many of the most toxic sites in Aotearoa have been mining tailings dams that have been abandoned or failed. This is not the sort of legacy that we should be leaving future generations, and it is not the sort of this we should be allowing multinational companies to create and then leave in our country."

The Waihi area also sits on a significant fault and the ongoing storage of toxic tailings in the area is of real concern from that perspective also. "Another reason not to allow such a purchase for this purpose, the risks far outweigh the benefit."

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