Waihi residents warned to quit homes

By ANGELA GREGORY

The residents of a dozen Waihi homes above old mine workings have been asked to leave after a report showed the houses are at risk of falling down holes.

Some 174 Waihi properties are in high, medium or low-risk zones for underground mine collapse, says the risk management report released by the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences yesterday.

The report, which took six months to research, was made public by the Hauraki District Council after affected property-owners had been advised of its contents.

Mayor Basil Morrison said most of the risky land was vacant. But 21 houses were in high to medium-hazard zones above the Royal and Empire Lodes.

Of those, eight were considered safe as they were well back from the potentially unstable land.

One of the remaining houses was unoccupied and the council had advised the other 12 home-owners to move.

Eight of the houses at risk are rented out by mining company Waihi Gold, and five are privately owned.

More houses may be affected above the Edward Lode, where 19 properties have been provisionally assessed as being in light to medium-risk zones.

Twelve of them are residential: six private and the rest owned by Waihi Gold.

Mr Morrison said the hazards in that area would be reviewed after the council carried out exploratory drilling in about a week, at a cost of $300,000.

He said counselling and motel accommodation had been made available to those residents asked to move, but none had taken up the offers.

If they refused to shift the council might have to issue orders to vacate, but that move could be challenged in a judicial review.

"Some have said they don't want to go - that is a difficulty in a high-risk area."

Waihi Gold general manager David Ingle said the company, the biggest land-owner in the town, was offering other rental accommodation to its tenants in the eight houses that must be vacated.

The company would not risk allowing them to stay, he said.

Mr Morrison said he would do all he could to get compensation for those financially hurt by the report's findings. He had already met Prime Minister Helen Clark, Finance Minister Michael Cullen and Government officials.

They had indicated that the Government would offer a similar deal to the one given to residents after a slump in Barry Rd last December, which swallowed a house and led to 16 others being abandoned.

Residents who lived near the hole signed a compensation settlement this year with the Earthquake Commission and Waihi Gold.

Mr Morrison said he could not estimate what sum might be sought.

"I have got a huge headache on my hands."

A report on mines in Waihi was first recommended in March 1999 after old workings collapsed at the top end of Seddon St.

A further report to advise on the likelihood of more collapses was commissioned after the Barry Rd slump.

Mr Morrison stressed that less than 2 per cent of the town's houses were affected, but he was concerned at an overall drop in valuations.

"We've got to get across that we've got a brilliant town - it is not dropping down a hole."

He said he would meet Waihi Gold management this week to see if the company could again contribute towards compensation.

But the report made it clear that no present mining activity had contributed towards the problems.

The vibrations caused by Martha Pit blasting were too low to cause any damage.

Dewatering, or the removal of water from the mine, was also not a factor because subsidences had occurred before the mine reopened in 1988.

Mr Morrison said Waihi had inherited an "unfortunate legacy" of the mining era from the 1880s to the 1950s.

Dick Beetham, one of five authors of the report, said international studies showed that subsidence could occur for up to 100 years after mining had ceased.

A summary of the report was delivered to all Waihi homes yesterday and a public meeting will be held in the Memorial Hall at 7pm tomorrow.