Roughan on Pike River

John Roughan writes:

The first thing Little did was set up a new organisation, the Pike River Recovery Agency, to advise him on the safety of various mine entry methods. Last week he chose one. It looks like the same one put to the previous Government. It involves constructing air-tight chambers along the tunnel they call the drift, pumping in nitrogen to displace the methane and making the air progressively breathable.

Just as in 2013, they don’t propose to go further than the point where the tunnel has collapsed about 2km in. The only difference is that five years ago this plan was reportedly estimated to cost $7.2 million. Last week we were told it will cost $36m. This is madness.

We are spending $36m on a project that will not even reach the mine proper, where the 29 men were most likely working when it exploded.

So the budget has increased 500% and it is not for a full mine reentry.

“Safety is paramount,” they all say. If you listened closely last week, they’re not definitely going further than a second chamber, a trifling 170m into the 2km tunnel. Beyond that, they say, it might not be safe. In other words, nothing has changed but the bill.

So it might be $35 million just to go 170 metres. That’s around $200,000 per metre!