Newmont Waihi Gold is appealing aspects of the proposed Correnso underground gold mine conditions to the Environment Court.

The company announced last night it will appeal aspects of the consent issued at the start of the month to mine underground in East Waihi.

Entrance to the Newmont Trio gold mine.

Hauraki District Council issued consent for the Correnso underground mine, but not for the wider Golden Link project.

'We are pleased that the commissioners largely accepted the evidence we put forward and that they recognised the positive benefits of the mining proposal for Waihi and the wider region,” says Newmont Waihi Gold general manager Glen Grindlay.

'There are, however, some aspects of the decision we would like to revisit because they are uncertain or give rise to uncertainty with respect to mining under the consent.

Glen says the company is appealing the area that has been granted, and some of the conditions relating to the construction and operation of the proposed Correnso mine.

The appeals period for some objectors doesn't close till late Wednesday, and it will be inappropriate for the company to comment further at this stage, says Glen.

The Correnso mine will be the first mine to be dug directly underneath a residential area by tunnelling from the nearby Favona and Trio mines. It will tunnel 150metres to 300metres beneath Gladstone and Walmsley Road in Waihi East.

The Correnso mine is expected to be active until about 2020, employing 400 full-time workers, most of who are transferring from other nearby mining operations drawing to a close.

While the independent hearing commissioners granted consent for the Correnso mine, they declined consent for the wider Golden Link project which sought permission to mine other areas of mineralisation in the Waihi East area. The hearings commissioners ruled that permission can be sought by a separate application.

In ruling the independent commissioners said an all-encompassing consent will give property owners outside the Correnso mine area 20 years of uncertainty while the wait for Newmont Waihi Gold to decide whether to mine under their properties.

The commissioners say the most significant adverse effect of the mining under Waihi East will be vibration.

Consent conditions include holding the applicant to the magnitude and number of blast events described in its evidence and particularly the number of blasts that are expected to exceed 3mm/sec.

The $1billion Correnso mine will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Conditions include that blasting will not take place at night, on Sundays or public holidays and will be limited to three blasts per day. These will 'most likely” take place in the one hour window at shift changes (7am and 7pm) and during meal breaks (1pm).

The Correnso mine project is planned to start in mid-2014 and to be completed by December 2020. The initial work will involve development activities with actual mining of the ore commencing from 2015.

The project involves the extraction of approximately 997,891 tonnes of waste and 2,539,675 tonnes of ore – most waste rock will be returned to the underground as backfill.

Mining of the Correnso ore is expected to produce approximately 570,000 oz of gold.

About 500 written submissions were received on the application, with most supporting the project and 115 opposed to it.

The entire hearing process including submissions, questions and transcripts is available on the Hauraki District Council website. http://www.hauraki-dc.govt.nz/