Quote Originally Posted by Airw0lf View Post
One further point - if they do decide to cease operating the smelter, it's not as simple as just walking away. If I remember correctly the exit costs are quite substantial (tens, if not more, of millions) - there's a fair bit of remediation work they need to do on the site. I stand to be corrected on this though as I am not an expert on the resource consents and such that they operate under.
Its an old article from 2015 but states the then past clean-up cost estimate was $200 to $400m. Add at least another 5-years of inflation and these are probably on the low side.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/indu...-district-plan