skippers and shotover mining claim on trademe

[kahu]

Hello,
I am interested in buying into this claim on trademe as a 49% holder and paying 25k for the option in the skippers and shotover river. does anyone know much about mining in conservation department land?
www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=879815846
thankx

[RKC]

G’day kahu,

I've tried to remember what I could about the mining that went on during the 1980's and 1990s in Skippers Creek, and … I'm fairly sure that there was no digger and screen mining in Skippers creek. Which makes Skippers Creek unlike many of the other tributaries in the Shotover catchment such as, the lower Stony creek, Moke, etc, where excavators worked from bank to bank and down to bedrock (breaking up the soft schist bedrock to get all the gold in crevices). If anyone knows different please post in this thread. Most likely the only reason for this was because of the difficulty of access for heavy earth moving equipment, and the steep sides would have trapped any excavators in the riverbed when seasonal flooding occurred. When L&M Mining had plants in the Shotover ( www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/8651/digger-and-gold-plant ) one of the richest patches they hit was near the junction of the Shotover and Skippers creek. The gold was so rich there that they ran the plant through the same spot a number of times. And what is of interest to us today is that L&M did not have any nugget traps in their recovery systems, with all the oversize going straight back into the river ( ). A guy I knew who worked on the dredge at the time was aware of this and after the plant had left the Skippers area, and was further upstream, he went over the tailings with a metal detector and got good gold. It’s worth pointing out however that he did the detecting before any of the seasonal floods hit, and flattened the tailings. If he had left it any later all the gold would have been sent straight to bedrock by flooding which redistributed the unconsolidated tailings. So … it’s reasonable to conclude that there are nuggets that went through L&Ms plant and which are now laying on the schist bedrock. The only question is whether it's payable to run the overburden (which is mostly more than a few meters deep in most places) through a dredge to get to the nuggets on bedrock. I doubt it, unless a 10-inch dredge was used. I was told by a guy who had/has a claim on the Shotover above Skippers that when the overburden was shallow he could get good gold from bedrock.



When I was in the Shotover catchment in the 1990's we looked at Skippers creek a number of times as an obvious area of interest. But, it was tested only once, by a guy in our team who put a 5-inch Keene triple sluice dredge in Skippers creek at a spot where the track crossed. All I can remember is that he did not stay long. I remember driving a truck in with a few other guys one day to get dredge out. I can’t remember if he got much. He probably did not get much as I would have remembered if he had. However, we could have pulled the dredge out for any of a number of reasons other than payable gold being found there, or not being there. Throughout the 1980's Skippers Creek would have been hit hard by guys with Suitcase dredges, unless the then claim owner was actively stopping anyone dredging there. Anyway that’s not particularly relevant as Suitcase dredges have always left more gold behind than they ever take from a waterway.


If you do a search back through this forum you will find extensive information about the legal aspects you need to consider. Following are some extracts from previous posts I was able to quickly find. First read ...
golddredgingforum.proboards.com/thread/206/nz-dredging-permits

Any person who wishes to establish a dredging claim (Mining Permit) on a New Zealand river has to deal with New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals (formally Crown Minerals) ( www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/minerals ), along with the relevant Regional Council (local government), the Dept of Conservation (DoC), the local Iwi ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwi#Iwi_and_politics ) and possibly a landowner if private land has to be crossed to get to the river. And it may also be necessary to deal with other "interested parties" who might raise an objection to the granting of a Resource Consent. And if one of the "interested parties" is a well funded environmental lobby group and/or Fish and Game, then the process can drag on much longer than it should with costs to the applicant increasing the longer it all takes to be resolved.

As a first step in the legal process, New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals have to be contacted so a Mining Permit, or possibly an Exploration Permit or maybe even a Prospecting Permit, can be applied for. There is an upfront fee of well over NZ$1,000 for the first Permit application from New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals with more charges to follow www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/minerals/permits/permits-how-do-i-apply-faqs/how-much-do-they-cost . The process Crown Minerals will go through in assessing an application is fairly straight forward and will mainly consist of determining if there is an Exploration or Mining Permit or Prospecting Permit already over the area applied for. In Otago especially, it is highly likely there will already be an Exploration Permit covering the river applied for and that will require consultation with the parties involved before an application can proceed. Crown Minerals do not evaluate any of the environmental impacts but may examine some health and safety issues.

The next step is to apply for Resource Consents which will examine the environmental issues. Its advisable to apply for the Resource Consents at about the same time a Mining Permit application is submitted to New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals, rather than waiting many months (about 6 months at present) until the Mining Permits are granted ... or have been refused. There are different Regional Councils in different areas of New Zealand's South Island with the Councils in the main gold producing areas being the Otago Regional Council (ORC) ( www.orc.govt.nz/ ) and the West Coast Regional Council www.wcrc.govt.nz/consents/ (and maybe the Tasman council). In Otago the ORC has consent regulations specifically for eductor dredging, which means that its not necessary to apply for a Resource Consent (non-notifiable consent) if its intended that no dredges larger than a dredge with an intake of 6" will be used. If the applicant wants to use a dredge larger than 6" then a Resource Consent will have to be applied for. And in Otago there are a number of rivers deemed by the ORC as unsuitable for dredging because they are environmentally sensitive ( www.orc.govt.nz/Publications-and-Reports/Regional-Policies-and-Plans/Regional-Plan-Water/ )

On the West Coast, the West Coast Regional Council will have to determine what Resource Consents are required and I believe the assessment process with this council is less stringent for small dredges that it is for dredges larger than 6 inch in size.

The DoC manage most rivers in New Zealand and as such there may need to be consultation with them www.doc.govt.nz/about-doc/concessions-and-permits/prospecting-exploration-and-mining/ .

Most rivers can be accessed via a public right of way, however there are some rivers which can only be accessed through private property. And to get access it would then be necessary to get permission from the landowner, which may involve the payment of a fee ( wams.org.nz/wams/ ) .

However ... before any of the above can be commenced its obvious that a suitable river must have already been located to claim. And this in itself is a near impossible task for someone who comes to New Zealand for the first time and knows nothing of the rivers here. For example, a miner coming to New Zealand for the first time is likely to be unaware what rivers have had trommel plants through them back in the 80s when the use of excavators were legal in live rivers and when those rivers were mined from bank to bank and down to bedrock. And then there are the numerous New Zealand rivers that have already been heavily eductor dredged in the 80s and 90s ... which incidentally does not necessarily make a river now totally unsuitable to dredge, but can sure make dredging much more difficult, especially for the inexperienced. The best example I can think of is Lyell creek
tinyurl.com/kk8k24 which was heavily dredged up until a few years ago. And what makes it a particularly unsuitable river to dredge these days is that it was dredged by an experienced professional Kiwi dredger who knew what he was doing ... compared to most recreational dredgers who don't have enough experience to get on to pay streaks and never put in enough hours to get even a fraction of the gold from a river. However its worth adding that there are most likely some remaining spots in the Lyell with good gold, but ... the only person who knows where those spots are located, would be the professional dredger who previously dredged the river so thoroughly. And for someone else to come along to attempt to dredge the Lyell these days they would probably run out of money before they could find any of the remaining hot spots. Another way overseas dredges can go broke in New Zealand is when they are mislead and put on to unsuitable rivers. There is a well known example of this that occurred back in the mid 90s when some visiting Australians hooked up with a hobby dredger who had two small claims on the lower Buller near Berlins. What the Australians 'did' know about the Buller in general was that this river had been a good producer of gold for Kiwi dredgers in earlier years, but what they did 'not' know was that all the gold was dredged from far upstream, in the upper Buller Gorge. They did not know that downstream from the upper Buller Gorge the Buller was poorly auriferous and a very different river. And they were also probably unaware that bucket dredging had previously been carried out in the Buller in its lower reaches. While on the claims, they first found that the floods in the lower reaches were so regular, even in the summer months, that there was no way they were able to put in enough dredging time even if the claims had good gold. And when they did manage to occasionally get in the river, between floods, there was not even enough gold to cover petrol costs. Their best day was only 20 grams with a 7 inch triple sluice dredge with most dredging days nowhere near that. If they had only done something as simple as dredging the upper Buller Gorge instead of the lower Buller Gorge things would probably have been very different and they would not have had to go back to Australia with their tails between their legs.

When I first came to New Zealand I was involved in a dredging project that turned out equally disastrous after I was misled. It started when I arranged with a Kiwi claim owner to dredge his claim under a tribute arrangement, and the next summer we arrived with three dredges imported from Australia (with all the expense that involved). We then got the dredges in the water during the Spring months when the water was still cold so we could get an early start to the season. After dragging the dredges for many klms up river through rapids and against a strong current, we then started dredging. And after being underway for only a short period, and looking forward to a good season to get our investment back, the Mines Inspector turned up one afternoon. He told us that the claim was not fully granted and we had to stop dredging immediately. Later I learned that the claim was not fully legal ... for the one simple fact that the required cash bond had not been paid to Crown Minerals by the claim owner. The summer before the claim owner had told me it was all legal and, as I know now, his intention all along was to only pay the bond out of the tribute money we would have given to him after dredging for a month or two ( we had stupidly not checked with Crown Minerals to see for ourselves that it was a fully granted claim).

To avoid the bureaucratic process refered to above, the best way for an overseas dredger to dredge in New Zealand would be to work someone else's established claim on a tribute arrangement. And although this is the simplest way to proceed there is some diligence still required. In this business don't take anyones word for anything and always check if a claim is fully granted and check the claim conditions which will state the largest size dredge permitted and any environmental restrictions in place.


=============
To establish a Mining Permit (claim) in New Zealand for dredging, first an application has to be lodged with Crown Minerals (Mines Dept) with a substantial fee (the first of many fees and a fee equal to what a multi-national mining company would pay). What Crown Minerals have to do these days during their assessment of a MP is mostly to check (with Lands and Survey) that there are no claims already covering the area applied for, and their are some health and safety issues they examine. Since the Resource Management Act (RMA) was introduced in the early 90s, Crown Minerals no longer assesses the environmental aspects of mining proposals, and that is why the time period Crown Minerals takes to assess Mining Permit (MP) applications is much less these days than it was prior to the introduction of the RMA.

For a claim specifically for eductor dredging there is usually no expensive ground surveying to be done. The boundaries can usually be plotted on a map with the boundaries following the river banks.

However, there can nevertheless be a delay with Crown Minerals if they have a lot of applications to assess (and in a gold rush such as we are experiencing at present, Crown Minerals are presently flooded with MP and EP applications ... mostly from large multi-national mining companies, who I guess could get preference).

Next, the process gets really involved as Resource Consents have to be applied for through the Regional Council in the area of the river of interest. The exception is Otago where, if you have a granted MP (claim), you can use a dredge 6" and less in nozzle size without applying for a Resource Consent (larger dredges require a Resource Consent). This exception only came about because of the lobbying efforts of myself and a few other professional dredgers back in the 90s. The Otago Regional Council originally proposed having the limit as motor size (a single 5hp motor was to be the limit for each dredge) but I put in a submission proposing the limit be on nozzle size as it is in other countries, and the upper limit to be a nozzle size of 6" ... my proposal was accepted. Unfortunately there was no similar lobbying with any other Regional Council of the South Island and in those other areas a miner has to apply for a Resource Consent for any dredge ... of any size. The process of assessing a Resource Consent is costly and time consuming. And if the river applied for is in an area not particularly environmentally sensitive the process is shorter, but if it is a river in an environmentally sensitive area the process can drag on and on, with NIMBIES www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4159217a12935.html and others delaying the process all the way.

And then there are the access agreements that have to be negotiated with the "landowner" before any dredging can commence. And in tourist areas there is usually a fee required to be paid to any private landowners involved who's land has to be entered to get to the river. The rivers themselves are usually "owned" by the Department of Conservation (DoC) on behalf of the Crown and the miner has then to negotiate with DoC.


====================

To dredge legally you will first have to apply for a Mining Permit from Crown Minerals, and whoever you first contact in Crown Minerals will send you the forms. My suggestion would be that once you have the name of the Crown Minerals public servant that sends you the first form to fill out, that in future dealings you phone the person so the application process can be hurried along. Crown Minerals get a lot of Mining Permit applications from companies that are only paper shufflers and who are just interested in playing games on the share market, so they are usually in no rush to have their applications processed. So, if you are talking to a person over the phone you can then explain you want the claim for genuine mining and need the process carried out as quickly as possible.

What size dredge you intend to use, will determine if you need to apply for a Resource Consent from the Otago Regional Council or not … if you intend to use a dredge with an intake of 6” or less you won’t need a Resource Consent.

However, even if you don’t legally require a Resource Consent, my suggestion would be to still talk to a Resource management Officer to be entirely sure you will be legal and there have been no recent changes to the regulations. Also, the ORC would probably like to be in contact with you so they can be aware of what you intend and to know about the Mining Permit. It will be an unavoidable long drawn out process if you have to apply for a Resource Consent ... dredging with a 6-inch dredge will be much easier.

There are different RMOs for different areas of Otago and what RMO you need to be in contact with will depend on where the river is that you will apply for a Mining Permit over. The person you first contact in the ORC will put you in contact with the appropriate RMO.



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

Attachments:

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[RKC]

G'day,



Regards,
Rob (RKC)

[goldkiwi]

Hi Kahu.
Regarding mining of Skippers by excavators and screen, the full length and width of Skippers was mined in the late 1980's by a Mr Murdoch with a floating trommel plant. I was there on a few different occasions and my understanding was it was a very successful operation. Sadly the man and his son were killed when their 4wd went off Skippers road after they had finished mining and were heading back up to the claim to remove the equipment.

[gavzilla1980]

Hi rob, sorry to bring an old post back to life. I have got permission to dredge the top of the shotover this season, roughly 5k down from the branches station on the Boyd claim. I read some of your early posts about the top not being so good at producing gold, do you know much about the history of that area? It seems like the opposite side of the river got worked back in the day, I seen a lucky fella on YouTube work the claim below quite well, but this area is wide in places and then deep as hell further up. Any info would be helpful, I've panned lots of colour in the bank before so may try dredge out the banks to start (depending on how bad sand flies get).

[RKC]

G'day gavzilla1980,

The main aspect of concern when considering modern dredging of the Shotover is the digger and screen mining that was carried out in the Shotover during the 1980s and 1990s (as mentioned above).

L and M Mining had their number 2 plant in the upper Shotover until the early 1990s. They dredged heading upstream, going toward Branches Station. And the closer they got to Branches the poorer the gold got. When they pulled the number 2 dredge out, the gold they were getting was very poor. The dredge was pulled out when it was in the river near this hut ( smg.photobucket.com/user/NZGOLD/media/Shotover%20river%20goldfield/NewImage2.jpg.html?sort=3&o=58 ). At the time they pulled out, L&M were being attacked by the rafters and local "environmentalists", which probably made it easier for them to take the final decision to pull the plug, and get out.

You can be fairly certain that your area of interest has already been gone through with L&Ms number 2 plant ( smg.photobucket.com/user/Coochee/media/Diggers%20and%20Screens/nzgoldB_009.jpg.html?sort=3&o=15 ). However ... its still worth a try with a suction (eductor) dredge (the bigger the dredge the better). Just try sinking as many sample holes as possible to see if there are any pay-streaks that may have formed since since digger and screen mining finished. And, be sure to get to bedrock as its would only be on bedrock that the nuggets that went through L&Ms trommel will have ended up (as already mentioned above).

In theory there should be good gold in the Shotover around Branches Station as the rich Floodburn and Shieldburn streams both feed into the Shotover at Branches.

I experienced a lot of grief myself when I applied for a dredging claim (Mining Permit) in a small tributary of the Shotover above Branches Station in the 1990s. On a prospecting trip above Branches we found a likely looking small stream (for dredging) that had old-timers tailings in the riverbank. Also we could get good color from the stream gravels with a pan and the overburden looked shallow. So ... that was enough for us to think it worthwhile to take the next step and apply for a claim so we could legally dredge, and thus give it a thorougher test. But that's when our problems commenced. After submitting our application, with a fee of well over NZ$1,000, we waited, and waited and waited! Then when we did get a reply, the bureaucRAT from Crown Minerals told us there was no gold above Branches and we should withdraw our application. Apparently the bureaucRAT had rung someone who he consider an experienced Shotover miner, who told him there was no gold above Branches. Although the name of the "experienced" Shotover miner was never mentioned it was fairly obvious to us who it was ... a local, with agendas of his own. This same individual was suspected by the dredgers who were up there at the time as the person who was informing Crown Minerals enforcement officers about dredgers, he had learnt on the grapevine, were dredging illegally in the Shotover catchment. Funnily enough he himself was a failed dredger, he just had a high profile and traded on his high profile to influence events to suit his own money-making agendas in the field of tourism. And dredgers are always considered as an easy target.

The best aspect of dredging in the middle reaches of the Shotover is the easy access. So, I would give it a try! The prospecting would have to be thorougher however. And, up there you would be away from idiot tourists floating by in rubber rafts pretending they are having fun.

All the best,
Rob (RKC)

[goldkiwi]

Gavzilla

Two days ago I was talking with the shift boss off the L&M #1 plant mining the Shotover River. He explained that L&M had some fabulous returns in different locations on the Shotover River but when they got to the Branches the gold returns dropped completely off and hence the reason for pulling out.
The best gold they recovered was a couple km's above the Oxenbridge Tunnel where over one thousand ounces was recovered in a few hours.

In the 1980's we put a test plant on the large flats above the Branches looking for any leads that may have run off the different streams. Bottom was followed for some distance but gold in economical amounts was not found and to my knowledge no one has been successful mining above the Branches.

There are a few areas that L&M did not mine but unless you have a large dredge capable of moving 6 metres or more of gravel, you would be best to look for place where you can reach bedrock.
There is one such area that I dredged and recovered several 4-8 dwt nuggets but the river flooded and I never returned. On the true right bank above where Skippers Creek flows into the Shotover, there is a rotten reef bottom in about 3-5 metres of water and only a few feet of wash with ample black sand and maori's. There was plenty of gold trapped in amongst the schist bottom to the tune of roughly an ounce to a square foot. I only dredged that for one day before the river pushed me out and I hung around for a week waiting but the rains continued and for whatever reason I never had the time to return. That was over 20 years ago and who knows if the place was dredged or dug up since. Its still worth a look. Happy hunting.

[gavzilla1980]

Thanks for the info guys. I friend recently sniped around the skippers junction to shotover and found some real good gold. Biggest being 10g, only issue was jet boaters right over head.

As for the claim looks like I'll have to reach some bedrock..

Gav