The group opposed to the fast-tracking of Santana's proposed Bendigo-Ophir mine is holding a fundraiser on 31st January. Sam Neill and Grahame Sydney are guest speakers.
That's upset the Minister of Masturbation Shane Jones, who believes Central Otago is a barren wilderness crying out for mining by offshore companies.
Now we have a Sam Neill vs Shane Jones spat, wherein the former refers to the latter as a "mini Trump wannabe."
Watch this space.
Central Otago mayor Tamah Alley takes issue with Shane Jones' claim that the region was ripe for mining because it's "largely empty". Her response?
"Largely empty is not available everywhere."
There's more criticism of Santana's contentious gold mining project at Bendigo. Ian Taylor has joined the fray with an open letter to Chris Bishop questioning the necessity of using fast-track legislation on such a risky project. He says:
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Bendigo is a cyanide-leach gold operation that is:
* producing arsenic-bearing tailings
* stored behind a dam
* located in a seismically active region
* at the headwaters of major water systems.
Taken together, these factors do not appear well suited to assessment under the compressed timeframes of the Fast-Track process.
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While I don't always agree with Taylor, he's right in this instance. I admire the people who are standing up and trying to stop this project damaging and polluting the Central Otago landscape forever.
Forever.
#Santana #Bendigo #Fast-Track #IanTaylor #NZ
While Shane Jones and his mates are keen to ignore public opinion and fast-track the worst possible mining projects, not everyone is on board with large scale environmental destruction.
Australian company Santana expects the Luxon coalition to ignore environmentalists. They've only been paying lip service to consultation and had requested a fast-track decision be made within just 30 days.
"Not so fast!" say DOC, the ORC, the CODC and the local rūnaka who have all submitted to the fast-track panel convenor, panning the fast-track proposal.
The good guys have joined the conversation.
Here's a twist in the Santana story I didn't see coming. The ODT headline reads:
"Santana chairman ‘clearly a cooker’
They're not wrong. Peter Cook (no relation) is a first class climate denier who believes CO2 is ‘‘the gas of life’’. Yep. That bad. There's more in the story.
Prof James Renwick demolishes Cook's arguments. Special brownie points to Green MP Scott Willis for providing that memorable headline and solid quotes.
‘‘If any company wants to be taken seriously, they’ve got to get rid of the conspiracy theorists and the people who are unable to talk sensibly and respectfully with the community.
‘‘If they employ people like this, they show that they have no care and no respect for the community.’
Amen.
