"We’re devastated it happened.
"We’re very apologetic because we know it’s caused distress to people in Queenstown and families in Queenstown, and in fact we’ve even got people in Skyline who’ve got family buried in that cemetery as well, and so we get it."
That’s Skyline chief executive Geoff McDonald, speaking this week exclusively to Mountain Scene about two disastrous Bob’s Peak slips in late September — caused by Queenstown’s biggest 24-hour rainfall in 24 hours, but aggravated by company activities on that steep hillside.
The first event was a mudslide that, following a logging operation below Skyline’s new gondola cableway, also swept up logs stacked for removal and logs used as bunds for temporary forestry roads.
In turn, that deposited timber and debris on to Queenstown’s historic cemetery and surrounds — a massive cemetery clearing exercise, funded by Skyline, eventually started last Friday.
In the second event, some fill excavated for terminal construction at the top of Bob’s Peak also came down.
This contributed towards substantial water and debris damage at Reavers Lane, which saw 41 people evacuated from their homes — for which Skyline’s already apologised.
"We’re not happy that material escaped the site, that’s our accountability, and we’ll be talking to our contractors about that," McDonald says.
However, he believes the underlying cause was a decades-long build-up of material in a nearby gully.
Company still unsure if liable for slip
Asked about the criticism Skyline’s copped, he responds: "I get it, I understand it, and I think people have kind of got every right to be frustrated and angry and disappointed about it.
"At the end of the day, weather caused the mudslide, which led to the timber being dropped, and so forth.
"I think the majority of the community get it … they want us to front up and remediate the things that are on us, which we’ll do.
"We live in this community as well and it’s important to us, and so we want to get it sorted as quickly as we can."
He adds his team’s also copped flak — "and, you know, that’s kind of sad".
In terms of construction fill still on the hill, McDonald says "we’re putting special matting over that, securing it, bolting things down — we’ll ultimately plant over the top of it".
On the forestry operation, he notes both his company and its Bob’s Peak landlord, the council, had had it audited and approved by third parties.
He still waiting, however, on experts to determine if it’s still liable for anything from September’s event.
"That whole forestry operation to clear that fire break’s taken a long time.
“We would love to have had it done over a year ago, but it’s extremely difficult, dangerous country, you can’t just lean [on] and push contractors so hard and then risk health and safety issues."
McDonald stresses the forestry clearing was sparked by reports which identified the trees were an "extreme fire risk".
"In a few weeks’ time, when the temperature comes up and the winds come up, we’re going to be thinking of that fire risk and thinking, ‘thank God’."
