So here this weeks link to propose mining in West Coast near Barry town

Below – but this is what I wrote back in December 2017 on my face book work diary.

(Note the area I am speaking about matches up pretty bang on where this proposal is going in now. Knew those cycle trails were just an excuse to be able start laying a road plan).

Got told today that uranium was found at Pike River and that the tailing which has evidence of this substance went missing once they shut the mine down after the November 2010 disaster.

Preliminary research indeed confirms the Paparoa National Park which Pike backs onto indeed (and is now part of since 2017) has known uranium deposits subject to surveys as early as 1955.

While more high tech and extensive surveys of an area known as the mineral belt were conducted in 2006 2010 and 2012….Crown Minerals Act 1991 was amended to make sure that the Crown automatically owns all petroleum, gold, silver, and uranium in New Zealand. The Paparoa National Park is protected from mining by Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act.

However on 22 March 2010, the Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee and Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson released a discussion paper including a proposal to remove 7,058 hectares of land from Schedule Four of the Crown Minerals Act 1991, including the Inangahua sector of Paparoa National Park. On 26 March 2010, following high profile activism from actress Lucy Lawless and Robyn Malcolm, a spokesman for Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee said that opencast mining in Paparoa National Park could not be ruled out. On 20 July 2010, in a joint statement by Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee and Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson, the Government announced that it had received 37,552 submissions on its discussion paper, and that it had decided not to remove any land from Schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act for the purposes of further mineral exploration or extraction.

However the means to control and cease national parks without public consultation emerged during the Military (Fie Eyes) exercise Southern Katipo 2017 when West Coast National Parks were requisitioned by the military and declared off-limits to locals, while troops conducted armed exercises around the shopping area, on domestic streets, in rural areas within the Kahurangi National Park where mining and road blasting is sought by big business interest. Forest and Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said in July 2017 that documents released under the Official Information Act indicated that ‘the scope of law and regulation that the government is proposing to suspend, to facilitate these developments, is “breath-taking”.

Southern Katipo exercise script included a military response to ‘a dispute over energy reserves’?

All of this comes as the TPPA (First initiated by Labour under Helen Clark)rolls into place.

.See also:

Klaric, R. 1967: Uranium exploration of Buller Gorge, Porarari River and Fox River mouth areas, New Zealand: CRA Exploration Proprietary Limited. Ministry of Economic Development, Wellington, unpublished open-file mineral report MR1250.

Nicholson, D.S. 1955: Wartime Search For Uranium in New Zealand. New Zealand journal of science and technology 36: 375-396….

This link has some detailed notes and photo on the exploration uranium survey in 1955.