This document may not be reproduced in full or in part without the written consent of Marshall Day Acoustics Limited Rp 001 R0 20210601 SJP (Waihi North Noise Assessment) ISSUE 8 of 79 2.0 EXISTING NOISE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS In this section we describe several documents that provide useful guidance in assessing the proposal’s potential for noise effects. We have referred to the applicable local noise limits and then considered these in the context of other guidance and the existing noise environment. From this, we form our view and recommend what should become conditions of consent. These, whilst based on the existing consents and the Hauraki District Plan (District Plan), seek to formalise a more consistent approach to activities associated with mining throughout Waihi. These are presented and discussed further in Section 4.0 of this report. 2.1 Current Consents Mining activity in Waihi has been governed by different consents and licences that have reflected the changing nature of the project since inception. As a summary: • Mining was originally permitted under the Mining Act 1971, with Mining Licence 32 2388 granted in 1987. • This licence was subsequently varied on multiple occasions up to and including 2017. • New expansion after the implementation of the Resource Management Act 1991 required resource consents. The firstgeneration District Plan adopted: o The existing licence area as the Martha Mineral Zone (MMZ); and o Created the ‘Extended Martha Mineral Area’ (EMMA) overlay for future expansion. • Consent was granted for the EMMA project in 1999: LUC No. 97/98-105 (with subsequent variations up to 2019). • ‘Project Martha’ was granted consent in 2018 for further open pit and underground works (LUC 202.2018.00000857.001). • The mining licence and EMMA consent have expired, but activities authorised by those instruments are now provided for as permitted activities under a specific-purpose zoning1. The boundaries of the operative Martha Mineral Zone broadly align with the mining licence and EMMA consent. The current MMZ rules reference and adopt the conditions of the earlier mining licence and EMMA consent. These areas are all shown overleaf in Figure 2. In addition there are a number of other historic consents that primarily relate to underground mining and have little relevance to WNP. These include the Favona, Trio and Correnso projects. 1 Hauraki District Plan, Section 5.17.1(4) 2.1.1 Overview of Existing Noise Conditions Each of the documents above provides some controls on noise generation, directly through noise limits, or indirectly through activity restrictions or other means. The Project Martha consent, whilst relating to the Martha Open Pit and Martha Underground for the most part, also provides some noise limits for activities around the Favona portal close to the Processing Plant, so has some relevance. At present, mining in the MMZ is subject to controls in the documents above and is a discretionary activity in the Rural Zone. Several areas of the Waihi North Project are outside the MMZ (either entirely or in part), primarily GOP, TSF3 and WUG. The current MMZ rules are discussed further in Section 2.2.3. The key aspect to note is that the two documents it references – the EMMA consent and the Mining Licence – have both now expired but are still retained by explicit reference in the District Plan and that their conditions effectively get rolled over. Beyond their specific controls, the previous consenting documents help to describe the noise environment created by mining activities in the past, which is by now well-established in the area. 2.1.2 OGNZL Consents Relevant to WNP The details of the mining licence are explored below. The EMMA and Project Martha consents focus on Martha operations and are not of much relevance to WNP. For completeness, we note the following: EMMA Consent In the EMMA consent, some noise controls apply to other areas away fromMartha, such as adjacent to the conveyor corridor and other smaller mining operational areas, but only to parts of that area which are outside of the Mining Licence area. As such, they do not apply to most of the Waste Disposal Area (existing tailings storage facilities, etc.) or to the Processing Plant. Similarly, there are some small areas for which the consent stipulates (at Condition 3.8(b)iii) that the normal District Plan provisions apply (detailed below in Section 2.2). Project Martha Consent The Project Martha noise limits drew a distinction between noise levels permitted in most cases (55 dB LAeq) and those frommining in some distinct areas around the pit that are outside of the Mining Licence area and primarily affected residential areas, which had a 50 dB LAeq noise limit. Of specific relevance to WNP, Condition 23 of the Project Martha consent applied the 55 dB LAeq limit to ‘use of the cement aggregate fill plant, Favona portal and polishing pond stockpiles and the pit lake filling pipeline corridor’.
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