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Foreign mineral corporations get their hooks in asbestos in the red hills

In the deepest, wettest, southernmost part of South Westland, a mining consortium made up of Cassair Asbestos Corporation of Canada, Kennecott Copper Corp of the USA, and Lime and Marble Ltd of NZ are in the advanced stages of prospecting a large deposit of asbestos ore. They have completed an extensive drilling programme and dug two 60 foot long tunnels into the deposit.

In a recent statement, Mr J.C. Braith-waite, the general manager of Lime & Marble, revealed that if the deposit proved to be a workable one, it could produce $30 million worth of asbestos a year.

Initial development costs would be about $60 million. He said samples were now being analysed in Canada to determine the quality of the fibre.

The Red Hills areas has long been known as a potentially rich source of minerals. During the last century as many as 150 prospectors scoured the area at one time. The red rock forms a belt that runs 50 miles from Jackson Bay in the north to the Hollyford River in the south, and in places it is up to four miles wide. The rock is rich in iron, nickel, copper and chromium, but the yield is too low for commercial exploitation. However, at the boundary of the red rock with the natural rock of the area, asbestos is commonly found. Kennecott, who took over the prospecting rights from Lime and Marble in 1969, was originally looking for nickel, but found good grade asbestos fibre instead.

In 1973 Kennecott and Lime and Marble teamed up with Cassiar Asbestos Corporation to form a consortium with the name Cassair Explorations, to further assess the deposit. Kennecott is one of the largest mining companies in the world, and had a large part to play in the overthrow of the democratically elected Allende government in Chile. Cassiar is a multinational corporation based in Canada, and owned by British, United States and Canadian interests. It has two huge asbestos mines, one in British Columbia and one in the Yukon.

The activities of the consortium made press headlines last year when they brought a team of bulldozers 60 miles down the coast from Jackson Bay, to build a road from Big Bay to the Pyke River Flats. It cost $250,000 and took five months to get as far as Durward Creek on the Pyke. The bulldozers were then ordered home, though still six miles from the mining site, and the consortium claimed that it was abandoning the road because of the cost. Conservationists were angered at the mess left by the dozers and at the insensitive attitude of the consortium to one of NZ's last great wilderness areas.

Government departments were prodded into action, and a high level meeting was organised between the Mines Dept, Lands And Survey. Forestry and the Ministry for the Environment. A somewhat embarrassed Mr A.P. Thomson, director general of the Forest Service, conceded that "it was a matter of great regret that my officers did not insist on full constraining conditions when authority was sought for the venture". The meeting agreed that a much greater degree of coordination between government departments was necessary, with closer supervision of the consortium's activities in the field. They decided to refuse permission for an airstrip to be built in the Pyke River capable of handling Bristol Freighters, until an environmental impact report had been made. They made it clear, that should mining go ahead, a full environmental impact report would be called for. The consortium was also directed to clean up the piles of empty oil drums left along the road, and to top-dress and oversow with grass any exposed soil.

It appears that Cassiar Explorations will not be active in the Red Hills this summer. But if the analysis now being carried out in Canada proves the deposit to be an economic one, we can "expect in the not too distant future to hear the rumble and roar of bulldozers in the Red Hills. And if Cassiar's British Columbia mine is any guide, the asbestos will be open cast mined. After initial separation at the mine, the ore would be taken by aerial cable way to a mill and township on the Pyke flats, from where the fibre would be graded, and trucked out to a wharf at Big Bay. The waste from the mill would be dumped in a tailings pile. A Christchurch man who has just returned after a year working at Cassiar's B.C. mine told me, "if you're interested in the conservation of the environment, you won't like asbestos mills". He said that windblown dust from the mountainous tailings pile at Cassiar settles on the vegetation for miles around, resulting in a low forest of mangy, stunted trees. The Canadian Government had put pressure on the company to pelletise the trailings, but nothing had been done by the time he left.

Next summer, a team of government scientists and a protest group are planning expeditions into the Red Hills. The government group is made up of scientists and civil servants from the Dsir, universities, and the Lands and Survey Dept.

The protest will take the form of a familiarisation tour of the general area, but particularly the mine site and the prospecting camp (which has been vested in Forest Service control for this season, and will be available for public use). Because of the difficult nature of the country only experienced trampers will be able to take part. The protest is being organised by the Campaign Against Foreign Control in NZ, Box 2258, Christchurch, and will take place during the last two weeks of February, with everyone meeting up at the mine site on Sunday 23 and Monday 24 February. The focus of the protest will be the foreign-dominated nature of the mining consortium. If mining goes ahead the consortium plans to regroup itself under a new name. New Zealand Asbestos Ltd, with Kennecott and Cassiar holding one million shares each, and Lime and Marble having the right to purchase 324, 581 shares. The protest group will also press for the inclusion of the Red Hills area into Mt Aspiring National Park (which it borders) and for the preservation of the surrounding country as a wilderness area. They are demanding that the asbestos be left in the ground and the Red Hills preserved in their natural state for posterity.

(More detailed information on the protest will be published in Salient shortly.)