An Otago gold mine set to have an expansion written into fast-track legislation has repeatedly breached resource consents, a second independent audit has found.
The audit, ordered by Dunedin City Council and Waitaki District Council, uncovered “widespread and ongoing non-compliance” with several conditions of land-use consents held by Oceana Gold’s Macraes mine.
The breaches are in addition to issues identified in a different Otago Regional Council audit, which found numerous breaches of consent related to water quality.
Many of the new breaches relate to land protected under a QEII covenant and include damage caused by stock entering the protected land, insufficient weed and pest animal control, inadequate planting, and insufficient protection of lizard habitats.
QEII covenants are created to protect and enhance biodiversity and landscape values.
Establishing the protected areas, which are adjacent to the mine itself, formed part of the conditions of operating the opencast and underground mine.
Some of the problems relate to a land parcel that was sold by the company, meaning Oceana Gold is still bound by the consent conditions but no longer able to control whether they are complied with by the new owners and leaseholders.
“The effect of this non-compliance is an almost-certain decline in the ecological values of the covenanted areas,” the audit report said.
“The covenants are the principal means by which adequate compensation is provided for the adverse effects of the mining activity.”
The audit, completed in January and provided to RNZ last week, found there was “inconsistent effort and lack of ongoing commitment” from Oceana Gold and “inadequate oversight” by the councils that granted the consents.
The gold mine has been in operation since 1990 and an expansion project set for inclusion in the fast-track legislation, which passed its second reading in Parliament last month, would extend the life of the mine by a decade, from 2026 to 2036.
Green Party environment spokesperson Lan Pham said the ongoing non-compliance demonstrated “extensive disregard”.
“It’s really clear that our existing RMA and consenting system isn’t actually protecting the environment.”
Under fast-track legislation the situation could get worse, as the proposed Bill could override existing environmental laws without the chance for community or expert voices to be heard, she said.
The Bill is likely to be passed under urgency before Christmas.
Once it has been passed, projects included in the legislation will be referred to expert panels to assess and set conditions.
At this stage, it was up to Oceana Gold to share its past history with the panel, Pham said.
“It really just shows the level of trust – and I would call it blind trust – that the government is putting on these companies to be actually coming forward with this compliance history.”
Neither Dunedin City Council nor Waitaki District Council has taken any enforcement action over the breaches.
Spokespeople for both councils said that since the audit, the councils had met with Oceana Gold and they were working on a “satisfactory resolution”.
Oceana Gold’s senior vice president of legal and public affairs Alison Paul said the Macraes mining operation had more than 5000 consent conditions.
“We have appreciated the independent view the audit has provided, and we are working hard with the councils to close identified gaps in our delivery.”
She was confident Oceana Gold would comply with its current consents, as well as any future consent conditions.
Audit ordered after reporting deficiencies
The councils ordered the audit after Oceana Gold’s 2022 annual report – which it sent to the councils eight months late – contained “reporting deficiencies”.
The audit found 14 breaches.
Some of the areas were overrun with weeds, such as gorse, broom and wilding pines, and where weed control had occurred it was not enough to eradicate them.
“OGL [Oceana Gold Limited] staff and contractors advised that they were aware of a weed control plan, but that the plan was not operative or used,” the audit noted.
Pigs and deer were a problem in some covenanted areas, and caused an increasing amount of damage over a period of years. Consent conditions required these animals to be kept to “zero density”, but no pest control was undertaken.
Possums were also supposed to be controlled to a residual trap catch rate – the percentage of nights in which a trap catches a possum – of four percent.
However, the annual reports to the councils only noted the number of possums and droppings seen in the protected areas. “No residual trap catch data were made available to me for this audit,” the auditor wrote.
One of the biggest issues the audit found was damage caused by grazing sheep and cattle, which ate and damaged existing native plants, as well as native plants newly planted in the areas by Oceana Gold as a condition of consent.
Stock entered through weak points in fencing, and the auditor concluded there may have been deliberate grazing of stock by people who leased adjacent land.
In one case, grazing that was sanctioned by the QEII Trust on a piece of land that Oceana Gold had sold led to “extensive damage”.
A spokesperson for the trust said a five-year light grazing trial had been permitted for 64 hectares of the on-sold land, to try to control introduced grass species that were overgrowing native short tussock.
The trial commenced in January 2023 and would be monitored by specialists, the spokesperson said.
Other issues the audit uncovered were inadequate planting of natives, and issues with the establishment of lizard habitats. Some lizard habitats were created, only to be destroyed by mining.
Oceana Gold’s response
An Oceana Gold spokesperson said a period of high staff turnover following Covid-19 lockdowns contributed to the late annual report, which sparked the audit.
The company was now working on the problems the audit raised.
It had repaired weak points in fences and worked with neighbouring farmers to make improvements. “We find only the occasional stock which has broken through to the covenanted land.”
The company said it had no control over the grazing trial, as it sold the land the covenant occupied – despite still being responsible for meeting consent conditions associated with that land.
“In future, research plantings will be established in areas more directly within the mine’s control and under agreement with the covenant holder,” the spokesperson said.
Planting levels were not where they should be but work was being done to increase the numbers, they said.
The company was working on creating appropriate lizard habitats, with the help of ecologists and herpetologists.
