Naturally occurring only on Mount Augustus near Westport on New Zealand's South Island, their entire habitat was destroyed by coal mining.

It was found only on the Mount Augustus ridgeline northeast of Westport, which has since been removed by mining operations of the state-owned company Solid Energy.

[5] From 2004, plans by Solid Energy to destroy the main habitat of the Powelliphanta "Augustus" while mining for coal caused controversy (see Save Happy Valley Campaign).

[6] This was condemned by Forest and Bird, by the Save Happy Valley Coalition[7] and by the Green Party,[8] in part because of significant doubts as to whether the translocation would succeed, and the lack of guarantee that this measure would protect the species from extinction.

There was also concern over the destruction of Powelliphanta habitat by the mining company OMYA on Mount Burnett, in Golden Bay.

In early December 2006, twenty snails removed from Solid Energy's opencast mine expansion at Stockton were released back into the wild.

On 8 January 2007 the Department of Conservation announced plans to release another 200 snails back into the wild at Stockton open-cast mine.