Strath Taieri mine promising, but use rail

THE restart of the diatomite mine at Foulden Hills, near Middlemarch, sounds promising, and potentially great news economically for the area (ODT, 28.5.18). My heart sank though when I read on and it was stated ‘‘. . . plus a fleet of trucks delivering diatomite . . .’’.

I hope I am not alone in asking that the Australian directors of the company seriously investigate the use of rail, instead of road.

Dunedin City actually owns the Taieri Gorge Railway to Middlemarch, and I ask our council to explore the potential of the railway line to carry this bulk product between Middlemarch and Bluff.

Do we otherwise really wish upon ourselves yet another fleet of heavily laden trucks churning up our publicly funded roads?

With containerisation, full containers of diatomite could readily be trucked from the mine to Middlemarch and placed on flatdeck railway wagons there.

From there, a daily train or two could be run down to Wingatui and then on to Bluff.

Otherwise we will in due course be reading of heavy trucks of diatomite occasionally losing control as the drivers attempt to drive down off the Strath Taieri plateau on to the Taieri Plain near Outram.

Having hopefully made it safely to the Taieri, which road will they then travel along to get across the plain to reach the state highway south?

West Coast coal is carried on the Midland Line to the Port of Lyttelton, so let’s seriously entertain a similar scheme for the Strath Taieri diatomite. Mark Hughes

Kew

I READ with interest the ODT article about the proposed diatomite mine near Middlemarch owned, according to the article, by Plaman Global.

This Australian company was, however, deregistered late last year.

The company involved is most likely the Plaman Group, a New Zealandregistered shell company for Malaysian tech giant the Iris Corporation.

While diatomite is a good and useful product, and as far as mining activities go relatively benign to extract, certain applications are environmentally irresponsible.

According to mining industry magazine Q&M, diatomite is used in Malaysia and Indonesia as a fertiliser for palm oil production, an activity welldocumented as responsible for massive rainforest destruction.

Is Otago to be complicit in this environmental crime for the reward of just 100 jobs?

Previous owners found the mine to be uneconomic. I hope, for the sake of the planet, this continues to be so. Shane Loader

Dunedin

Our ‘sharp’ leaders

AS an Invercargill ratepayer, I am aghast that our city council (and museum trust with city councillors as trustees) has decided to close our earthquakeprone museum for safety reasons.

It is pleasing to note that the Dunedin City Council has the expertise to understand the new building standards, but has not panicked when faced with its civic duties and has kept the Edgar Centre open while strengthening work is done.

Our museum has much lower visitor numbers and lower seismic risks. But unfortunately, our mayor and councillors did not take building nor WorkSafe NZ advice and just closed the museum indefinitely.

To make matters worse, they have had the engineers’ seismic assessment for five years and did not action any of its four recommendations, so now have no idea of the cost of the strengthening work nor the timeframe needed.

So, Dunedin you are blessed with sharp civic leaders.

Is it possible that we could borrow a couple?

Nobby Clark Spokesman, Invercargill Ratepayers Advocacy Group