Pike River miner re-entry plan to go before minister
Andrew Little, Minister Responsible for the Pike River Re-Entry, will today receive a plan from the Pike River Recovery Agency, whose preferred option is to go into the mine’s drift.
Little told Newshub Nation at the weekend it would “almost certainly” require more funding, which he would seek from Cabinet.
Up to $23 million over three years has been budgeted.
“Once I have the agency’s report . . . my independent ministerial adviser’s report, and the decision from Cabinet on the funding, then I’ll make a decision. That’ll be mid-November,” Little told Newshub.
Little has previously said he hoped re-entry could happen by December.
The Government has committed to return the bodies of the 29 men to their families, and options for how to do that were taken to the families and approved earlier this year.
Little said at the time the three options put up by the agency were similar, but had differences in how they organised a second exit point, and the order in which parts of the plan happened.
On November 19, 2010, a methane blast at the mine, 46km northeast of Greymouth, trapped and killed the 29 workers inside.
The mine workings and drift are full of methane, which is dangerous when mixed with fresh air.
The Pike River Recovery Agency’s plan to conduct a safe manned reentry is based on filling the tunnel with fresh air, so people re-entering can breathe without apparatus. To do that, methane needs to be purged from the mine workings and tunnel with nitrogen.
Earlier this month, the components for making up the nitrogen plant required for the re-entry arrived at the mine site. The plant was expected to take about 10 days to set up. It would then pump nitrogen into the mine portal for pre-entry testing to indicate how long it might take to push nitrogen through the mine.