PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERYA local group opposed to Santana Minerals’ fast-track mining application launched this week with a campaign that questions the mine’s net economic benefit for the region. For the group, it was a simple equation: high public risk versus low public return was a bad deal for the region. For the group, the big risk was the mine’s use of a tailings dam, an earth-filled embankment used to store byproducts of mining operations. The group said the dam — used to store byproducts from the Santana project — would contain 18millioncum of toxic waste behind a wall of waste rock taller than the Clyde Dam, forever. In 2019, the collapse of a tailings dam in Brazil killed 270 people, with the mining company responsible ordered to pay $US840million ($NZ1.4b) in reparations to cover the environmental and economic costs.

Source: Otago Daily Times April 06, 2026 17:35 UTC