In 2018 the reaction from the NZ mining industry to the Pike River recovery operation was to predict a budget blowout due to the compromised structural integrity of the mine after the explosions.
Solid Energy had identified the most significant risk to manned re-entry as roof fall that could injure, trap or kill workers. The roof and wall supports in the drive were expected to be of “sub-standard structural integrity” with “obstructions to determining the condition of the existing supports”.
Among the 243 hazards identified in the government report on re-entry was the possibility of “asphyxiation or explosion due to loss of control of the atmosphere within the drift”. The drill holes allowing fresh air into the drive were located close to the methane-gassing Hawera fault.
Risk control added a massive layer of expense to the challenging re-entry operation. In 2014, Solid Energy estimated the cost of attempting to recover the remains of the 29 miners at $7.2M. Four years later the government budgeted $23M for re-entry, but would that be enough? Experienced miners who didn’t think so kept their opinion to themselves because Pike River was a sensitive subject, the families had suffered enough and Dinghy Pattinson was a well-respected member of the mining community born and bred in Greymouth from five generations of miners.
This month the Pike Recovery Agency expects to reach its goal which is the rockfall 400 metres into the drive. Thankfully, nobody died, was injured or trapped in the recovery operation, but the downside is that costs blew out to more than double the original budget.
“Recovering the Pike River mine drift could cost up to $51 million, more than double the original budget.”
Stuff
Under cover of a budget for the impending recession, the government slipped Andrew Little a sneaky $15M to complete the project ($10.8M funding plus a $4.2 million contingency). Little’s timing is awful at a time when this money could easily have been better spent.
But the money is of secondary consequence to the Pike victims’ families who seek evidence to apportion blame for their losses. In that context $51M is simply a Band-Aid on the open wound of grievance. $51M is not enough when their satisfaction can only be reached when someone is held to account for the tragedy.
Families want answers and when they reach the rockfall and there are no answers on this side of it they may demand that more be done to move further into the drift.
“Pike River mother Sonya Rockhouse said the re-entry project, and the evidence it would unearth, was the best chance families had to see someone held to account for killing their men.
“People ask me why so much money is being spent, to me it’s quite simple: it’s being spent to try to solve the mass homicide of 29 men. We can’t be a country that refuses people justice because it costs too much,” she said.
Bernie Monk has battled for nearly a decade to get his son Michael back and to see somebody held accountable for his death.”
Radio NZ
It doesn’t matter how much money is spent on the Pike River recovery operation; money is not the issue.
“The government had originally said it would assess what was involved in moving into the mine’s main workings, once it had recovered the entry tunnel.
However the Pike River Recovery Minister, Andrew Little, now said this would not be happening, and work would now finish once crews reach the rockfall just before the main workings.”
Radio NZ
Bernie Monk is unhappy that Little is reneging on his promise.
“How can they make this call when the whole idea was to go down 800m – it’s never been investigated – [to] make a call before we even get there,” Monk said.”
Without taking away from Andrew Little’s rash promise to families of the victims, those families should take a step back and think about 2020 as the extraordinary year when Coronavirus and a looming recession blindsided the whole country – on a much bigger scale than when Little blindsided the Pike River families. To get through Coronavirus and a recession and still come out the other side fighting, we all need to adjust our expectations.
A few months ago the situation we are in was not even a bad dream but the reality now is that each decision we make is on the back of a potential disaster bigger than Pike River. Everything has changed and there is no going back.
The recovery operation only came about at all due to the enormous pressure victims’ families put on the government to fund the re-entry. Families have been involved in the re-entry process every step of the way but, with no disrespect to them, the Pike River recovery operation must take a back seat to a much larger unfolding problem.
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