Waikato regional economic profile - Waikato Regional Council

aggregate resources are put to a wide variety of uses but by far the most significantuse is as roading material. In 2006 the Waikato region produced almost seven milliontonnes of aggregate and industrial minerals. In addition to being necessary for themaintenance of the region’s infrastructure, approximately 3.2 million tonnes was“exported”, mainly to the Auckland region. Some activities associated with theextraction of aggregate such as quarrying can, by their nature, conflict with otherneighbouring land use activities such as rural residential land uses and demand forWaikato aggregates is expected to increase significantly in the coming years asAuckland’s available aggregate supply decreases or is made more difficult to exploitdue to competition from other land uses. 331Precious metals such as gold or silver are found in the Hauraki epithermal zone whichhas the only producing epithermal goldfield in New Zealand. The Martha Mine open pitand Favona Underground mines in the town of Waihi, produced 108,000 ounces ofgold and 522,129 ounces of silver in 2010. 332WRC’s proposed Regional Policy Statement 2010 Policy 6.7 states that it will seek towork with territorial authorities, iwi authorities, relevant industry and other agencies toidentify and map the location of significant mineral resources. This mapping will bemade available to territorial authorities. Preliminary mapping is shown in figure 103.Figure 103: Indicative map of mineral deposits in the Waikato region 333331Paling et al (2008, p. 61-63).332Newmont Mining Corporation (2012, The Asia Pacific region).333Waikato Regional Council (2000, p. 179).Doc # 2069885 Page 95