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Source: ONE News -
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Conservation land behind the flood-prone town of Thames could be first on the list of new mining areas as cabinet considers opening up more of the conservation estate.
Forest and Bird says the land is on a shortlist of sites that includes parts of Great Barrier Island and most of Stewart Island.
But a ONE News investigation has found mining could put Thames at risk of a devastating flood of debris.
When Thames floods, the water flows from hills above town that ONE News understands are near the top of the list for new mining.
"Our understanding is it's adjacent to Thames, it's two thousand hectares...it's a large area," says Kevin Hackwell from Forest and Bird .
Cabinet is likely to be considering a mineral stocktake of that and other land at its next meeting and Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee says when Cabinet has made its decision there will be a public discussion.
"I'm not saying anything until that time," says Brownlee.
But Forest and Bird says it has heard from more than one highly-placed government source that Thames land stands to lose its Schedule Four protection - making mining there much easier.
"Clearly the industry have got the ear of the government - we're saying look these are national parks not the National Party's parks," says Hackwell.
But not everyone agrees and there's geological evidence of gold-bearing quartz in the lush hills.
ONE News spoke to a geologist who has assessed the risk to the area of what is called a debris flow - more like a landslide than a flood and the sort of occurence that devastated Matata five years ago and washed tree limbs and rubble through Te Aroha a generation earlier.
"You get hundreds of thousands of tonnes of material coming out in one large lump...they are amongst the most destructive of things you can have in stream channels," says GNS geologist Mauri McSaveney.
The geologist says in a debris flow huge boulders could tumble down a stream towards Thames, hitting 50 kilometres an hour by the time they reached the bottom and much faster than anyone could flee.
Currently there is a one in 10 chance of a significant debris flow in the next 50 years and a new barrier now guards the hospital at the end of the stream.
McSaveney believes laying in roads and excavating just to explore the land above Thames would increase that risk.
"They are unlikely events but these events are the sorts of things that will destroy structures and kill people," he says.
