Agency seeks miners for Pike River re-entry
A Pike River disaster survivor would love to be part of the mine re-entry efforts – but he would have to leave a stable job to do it.
Russell Smith said he could not give up his meatworks job for a fixedterm contract and that many former Pike workers would be in the same position.
‘‘You’ve got to think of your future,’’ Smith, a former coal-cutter at the West Coast mine, said. ‘‘If you’ve got a good job you’re not going to give that up for a few months and then back to scratch if you weren’t lucky enough to get your old job back.’’
Smith and Daniel Rockhouse escaped the mine after it was rocked by a methane gas explosion in November 2010. The bodies of 29 men remain in the mine.
Smith is now working at the Kokiri food processing plant, inland from Greymouth. He was disappointed he would not be among the mine workers the Pike River Recovery Agency needed to help re-entry and recovery work at the mine.
‘‘I’d like to go in and have a look. I’m not frightened to go in there, it would be good as gold to go in but I couldn’t throw in my job and then be left in the lurch when it’s finished.’’
The agency is advertising for five mining staff to help with rwork in the mine drift access tunnel.
Smith said he was 100 per cent behind the agency’s efforts and that he believed there was a good chance it could find bodies in the previously unexplored section of the drift.
He hoped the recovery team would be able to continue into the mine workings beyond a rockfall and that new evidence would be found to push for charges against those in charge of the mine.
‘‘I’m fearful most of the evidence will be the other side of the rockfall. But in reality they don’t need new evidence, all the evidence is there.
‘‘If you’ve got a good job, you’re not going to give that up for a few months.’’ Pike River disaster survivor Russell Smith
‘‘The Royal Commission was clear. In the weeks before the explosion, the managers got 21 warnings that methane had built up to explosive levels and they kept us down there. They were waiting for it to blow. It’s a big cover up and the National Party helped by not allowing re-entry . . . sooner."
Smith paid an emotional visit to the mine portal in July. Last Thursday, Bernie Monk, whose son Michael died in the disaster, entered the mine for the first time. When he entered the portal it was 96.5 per cent methane beyond the 30m seal.
The Pike River Agency let the families access the mine portal. Several people visited the mine drift in April, including Pike Family representatives Anna Osborne and Sonya Rockhouse.
As the focus moved to getting the staff to support re-entry, agency chief operating officer Dinghy Pattinson said a good deal of labour-intensive work would soon begin.
‘‘One of the first of these tasks coming up will be laying the nitrogen lines up in the bush,’’ Pattinson said.
The miners would need to have experience working in underground coal mines in New Zealand, he said.
The agency will initially advertise the roles on the West Coast. The fixedterm roles will end in June, 2019.
The agency has hired a nitrogen plant that is expected to be running at the site at the start of October. It will purge the mine of methane and then stop fresh air at the end of the drift from entering the mine workings.
The agency is developing a detailed operational plan following Pike River Re-entry Minister Andrew Little signing-off concept plans in July. Little will decide whether re-entry can happen after the detailed plans go through a thorough risk assessment.
The agency previously sought tenders to recover the drift. It received 14 expressions of interest but decided to manage the physical recovery itself.
Agency chief executive Dave Gawn said specific re-entry tasks may yet be subcontracted. Gawn previously said the agency would conduct a feasibility study on continuing re-entry once the drift was recovered.