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In March 2006, the Public Environment Report which Compass Resources compiled for assessment of the Browns Oxide proposal was found to be deficient. The NT EPA have asked Compass for more information about the project’s impacts on local water values.
This latest move vindicates the concerns of the many local landholders, residents and environment groups who wrote to the EPA in response to the proposal. The most common concerns related to the impacts of the Browns Oxide proposal (and the anticipated expansion into a major Sulphide project) upon local water values, including :
impacts of the current Oxide proposal on local groundwater users;
impacts of the expanded Sulphide proposal on the Darwin River catchment;
discharges from the minesite on downstream water quality in the East Finnis;
mobilisation of contaminated groundwater from the old uranium mines;
management and monitoring of surface water run-off;
The East Finnis River still bears the impacts of the old Rum Jungle Uranium Mine, which has yet to be fully rehabilitated. Inadequately managed waste piles on the site continue to leach acid water, containing heavy metals including uranium, into the river.
Compass Resources have promised that the water they plan to dump into the river will be no worse than what’s already there. But that’s just not good enough. Rum Jungle needs nurturing, not another polluting uranium mine.
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