The story of Owhiro Bay Quarry
- Author
- Atkinson, L.; Bouzaid, B.
- Year
- 2004
- Publisher / Organisation
- Wellington City Council
- Pages
- 67
- Summary
- The Owhiro Bay quarry site is right at the entrance to the South Coast and provides access to Red Rocks and Te Kopahau Reserve. It is now set to become a new coastal recreation reserve for Wellington. This area of land once provided rock for many of Wellington’s public roads and building sites, but the new use will better fit with the restorative aims of the South Coast Management Plan and provide a great resource for Wellingtonians and visitors. The site has seen many changes in use from Maori occupation, through early quarrying operations of shoveling gravel from the beach, to modern drilling and blasting, crushing and screening. The quarry in the late 1990’s provided around 300,000 tonnes of aggregate for the greater Wellington market. It was a critical and much needed resource for a growing city. It has however now been four years since the Owhiro Bay Quarry was purchased by the Wellington City Council, following its closure by Milburn New Zealand. So why did it close? Why did this critical resource get lost? Clearly there were many sides to the story, and the issues were complex. Some of the many points of view are therefore reflected in the interviews with quarry people, environmentalists and others, which are included in this document. The Mayor of Wellington at the time, Mark Blumsky, who was called on to open the Institute of Quarrying 1998 conference in Wellington, reflected in his speech another side to the issues surrounding quarries and the public perception of them. “The general public still does not have a good perception of quarries and what they do…and tend to lump quarrying in with strip-mining in terms of its environmental impact. [whereas in fact] quarries have to be environmentally friendly these days, or they’re out.” The emphasis now is on quarries which operate within accepted environmental standards and which meet public expectations about the noise, by-products and visual impact of such activities.