Pike recovery boss: No pressure
Pike River Recovery Agency boss Dave Gawn says he’s had no political pressure to reenter the mine, and won’t hesitate to stop the operation if safety concerns warrant it.
Gawn appeared before the finance and expenditure select committee at Parliament yesterday, a day after Pike River Re-entry Minister Andrew Little said reentry would begin on May 3 by breaking through the 30m seal at the start of the drift.
Gawn told MPs that, if things go according to plan, the whole drift to the roof fall area could be recovered by the end of September.
The Government has fended off suggestions it’s put too much pressure on the recovery agency by creating expectations of re-entry, which its predecessor said was too unsafe.
But Gawn said he had not been under any pressure for the agency to go into the drift, nor would he allow it.
“Do I feel confident that I’m not going to get any political pressure? Absolutely. Quite frankly I wouldn’t accept that,” he said. “It would be very public if there was.”
Gawn said safety was paramount and he would not hesitate to call off the re-entry plan if needed. “The families know that, notwithstanding the fact that they’d love to be able to recover the area where most likely their loved ones are. But they don’t want to see any other injuries.”
He said it was “certainly possible” the operation could recover some of the 29 men who died at the mine in 2010.
The main safety concerns were methane gas and the explosive atmosphere it can create, the potential of fire in the roof fall area, where there had been fires before, and the possibility of a drift collapse.
Gawn said plans were in place to mitigate these risks. Last Friday the agency had run through a rehearsal of what to do in a drift collapse.
“I’m confident we have minimised the risk to the smallest amount that we can. You can’t undertake mining operations without . . . risk.”
The Government has provided $36 million to the agency, which Gawn said may not be enough. It’s likely to be tight,” he said.