Otago Daily Times · 6 April 2026 · Ruairi O'Shea
“New anti-mine group takes aim at tailings dam failure risk”
About: Santana Minerals Ltd
A small miner against a local paper. The paper corrected one point: the expert it quoted is not a professor. New Zealand's Media Council did not uphold the rest of the complaint. Article and ruling read in full; the reply the paper printed sits behind a paywall.
refuted with a document
- 1 refuted
We count sentences. We do not score the outlet.
What the outlet published
What the documents say
What the outlet published · Sentence 1
“The group's website posits the mine's purported economic benefit — an estimated $6.75 billion worth of gold, 375 new jobs and $1.5b in tax income — did not outweigh the economic cost of a likely environmental disaster, with $1.9b at stake for the tourism and agricultural industries.”
What the outlet published · Sentence 2
“Around 78% of the value of the gold will go to an Australian mining company, but we take on the majority of the risk.”
What the documents say
«Santana also complains that the claim that "Around 78% of the value of the gold will go to an Australian mining company" is presented as a direct quote and left to stand without challenge, qualification, or attribution to any identified source. It contradicts Santana's own calculations that suggests over 60% of gross profits are expected to remain in New Zealand.» — Reclamación de Santana Minerals recogida en la resolución del Media Council de Nueva Zelanda, caso 3883, 8 de junio de 2026. https://www.mediacouncil.org.nz/rulings/santana-minerals-against-the-otago-daily-times/ NOTA DEL EDITOR: el Media Council no le dio la razón en este punto — «Santana has not demonstrated that the figure is clearly inaccurate».
▸ Not yet checked
What the outlet published · Sentence 3
“The group said the dam — used to store byproducts from the Santana project — would contain 18 million cu m of toxic waste behind a wall of waste rock taller than the Clyde Dam, forever.”
What the outlet published · Sentence 4
“Over the past century, just over one in 100 tailings dams have failed (compared to one in 10,000 with conventional water retention dams) and when they did, the results were disastrous.”
What the outlet published · Sentence 5
“...while pointing to the work of tailings dam expert Steven Vick, who said the eventual failure rate was 100%.”
What the documents say
«Santana also complains that it was inaccurate to refer to the expert mentioned in the article as "Prof Steven Vick" as he is not a professor. He is a geotechnical engineer and consultant with no university affiliation. The incorrect title inflated the apparent authority of the claim and misdirected readers.» «[T]he claims appear to have come from a research paper by Mr Vick in which he said that the structural failure probability of tailings dams "approaches 1.0 after several hundred years" [when constructed using 20th-century technology].» — Reclamación de Santana Minerals, resolución del Media Council, 8 de junio de 2026. NOTA DEL EDITOR: en este punto el diario rectificó. El Otago Daily Times aceptó el error y la web ya no dice «Prof». El Media Council añadió que la corrección debería haberse señalado en el propio artículo.
▸ Refuted with a document
Published unedited, sealed with a timestamp and no longer modifiable.
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