Pike River families picket to stop mine being sealed

Friday, 9 July 2021

Pike River families protesting against the Government's decision to seal the mine. (Video first published in July)

Pike River families have staged a protest against the Government’s decision to seal the mine.

A group representing 20 families blocked the mine access road early on Friday, preventing the Pike River Recovery Agency from permanently closing the mine.

The agency is preparing to hand the site over to the Department of Conservation for inclusion in the Paparoa National Park by November.

It has completed a $50 million re-entry of the mine’s access tunnel, or drift, with the aim of recovering evidence to help a police criminal investigation.

* Pike River families launch court action against sealing of the mine

* Andrew Little rejects Pike River families' plan to recover more evidence

A group representing 22 of the Pike River families are staging a protest against the decision to seal the mine.

The group of families does not want the mine sealed until evidence is recovered from the main ventilation fan, which sits 130 metres further into the mine workings.

The agency is also helping police to drill six boreholes, including one in the fan area that could corroborate or discount the possible causes of the explosion that were listed by the royal commission into the disaster.

A police spokesperson said the drilling had begun and would involve digital scanning and possibly photography of the conditions in the mine.

Pike River families have staged a blockade at the mine site.

Families spokesman Bernie Monk said they did not want to stop police from gathering evidence.

“We are prepared to stay here until they sit around the table and come to some agreement and don’t seal the mine until they finish the investigation.”

The families presented the Government with a concept plan to recover the fan, developed by a group of mining experts who said it would cost $8m and take 12 weeks using standard mining techniques.

The experts said the fan was a likely cause of the explosion in the mine, where 29 men were killed in 2010.

Pike River father Bernie Monk is protesting against the Government decision to seal the mine.

Ross Harvey, whose 28-year-old son Riki Keane died in the tragedy, made the trip to the mine site from his home in Nelson.

“We’ve got the police still conducting an investigation and drilling boreholes and the recovery agency retreating as quickly as they can trying to seal the mine.

“The two don’t seem to meet, so I’d suggest the agency or the Government to slow down and let the police complete the investigation,” he said.

Pike River mother Carol Rose said 50 members from 20 families had signed an affidavit supporting a judicial review into the Government’s decision to seal the mine. The application was currently before the courts.

She said six families wanted the mine sealed, two had not responded and one was neutral.

“There’s a much better chance of actually bringing charges and getting a conviction for 29 deaths [if evidence is retrieved from inside the mine],” she said.

Pike River Recovery Minister Andrew Little has repeatedly stood by his decision in March last year not to spend any more money on the project.

The Pike River Recovery Agency reached the roof fall 2.26km up the drift access tunnel.

On Friday, he said he would not make any agreement with the families that “could obstruct a police investigation”.

“A core part of the remaining work of the Pike River Recovery Agency is to support the police investigation. Anything that impedes that work could obstruct the police investigation.”

He said the police needed agency personnel at the mine site to continue its investigation, which would continue regardless of the work to seal the mine.

Agency chief executive Dave Gawn said the agency was prioritising work to ensure operations continued safely.

“The door to the agency is always open to the families.”

In a letter to Police Commissioner Andrew Coster, the families’ lawyer, Anselm Williams, said the families planned to be at the site for the foreseeable future.

They believed the police investigation was an important step in their quest for justice, and they did “not intend to delay or interfere with the investigation in any way”, he wrote.

The agency earlier told the Government the families’ re-entry plan was technically feasible, but it would cost up to $25m and take 10 months to recover the fan by tunnelling through a 30m roof fall.

Agency chief executive Dave Gawn previously said the process of withdrawing from the mine drift had started.

The team had begun withdrawing back to the 170m mark, Gawn said. A temporary seal would be put in at that point.

The seal consists of a built-in single steel door, surrounded by mesh which is then sprayed with a concrete product. Work on a second seal at 30m is expected to begin in August.

The agency is expected to be disestablished by early 2022.