Gravel miners caught out

Gravel companies will come under increasing scrutiny after two were found mining too close to road bridges, and a third got a warning letter for alleged illegal extraction at Blaketown.
The incidents were revealed at a West Coast Regional Council meeting this week.

M S Moore Contracting was found at the Little Grey River, at Mawheraiti, extracting too close to the State highway bridge.
Westroads was told to remediate and leave a site after extracting too close to the State highway bridge on the Grey River, although only about two truck loads of gravel had been taken by the time the council arrived.
Westroads also got a warning letter “taking gravel from the beach in a manner inconsistent with the agreed skimming method”.
Cr Peter Ewen said in addition, the council had recently discovered a company mining at Inchbonnie “very close” to its own river protection works.
Coal companies like Pike River were scrutinsed more than gravel miners, even though some gravel companies were allowed to extract up to 100,000 cubic metres.
“I’m getting a feeling that our monitoring might not be what it could, especially when they’re getting close to the bridges.
“Council relies on a common sense policy from operators, but if they keep getting close to the bridges that’s a concern to me.”
Consents and compliance manager Colin Dall, said companies normally had to keep 50m back from bridges.
The effects of mining nearby were very site specific — sometimes gravel could build up, which could reduce the amount of water able to pass under during a flood, and removing it could be beneficial. However, in other places it could undermine the bridge or bank.
He said the the council was going to be putting “additional resources” into monitoring gravel mining.
“We need to increase our monitoring.”
There were not the only mining complaints in June. Two abatement notices were issued after a mining operation at Waimea discharged sediment to water and a creek ran dirty at Hou Hou. Monitoring data did not back up complaints about dust from the Westroads yard.