Mt Fitch is located at the north end of Rum Jungle. The deposit is only 3.5km south of Darwin River Dam, and even closer to the edge of the Darwin River catchment. The proposed radioactive tailings dump at Browns is just 6.5km north-west of Batchelor.

Plans to process up to 2 million tonnes of ore a year at Mt Fitch, a deposit of around 6500 tonnes of uranium, means millions of tonnes of waste will be left behind when the mine closes.

To do this, we estimate that Compass Resources could demand up to a million litres of water a day, which may impact upon other water uses in the region.

Since applying for a lease over their most prospective uranium deposit at Mt Fitch, any pretence about the miner's real intentions is gone. It is now clear that Compass want to use Browns as a staging ground for their uranium venture.

Compass have told their shareholders that infrastructure from Browns could be easily redeployed to a nearby uranium deposit.

More recently, the company proposed dumping the radioactive tailings from the Mt Fitch and Area 55 uranium projects on site at Browns. But they have yet to respond to EPA recommendations about how they plan to manage the radioactive waste from Browns, let alone from two new uranium mines.