Compass have confirmed that, if approval is granted for the Oxide mine, they plan to immediately seek permission to mine the sulphide deposits below.

The Browns Sulphide project covers a greater footprint, extending into the boundaries of the old uranium mine. Whereas the Oxide project would produce 3.9Mt of ore over four years, the sulphide deposit below contains ten times as much ore, and could take over twenty years to mine.

Back in 2001, Compass failed to get approval to develop a combined Oxide / Sulphide project at Browns. A major obstacle was the fact that this larger project was recognized as a Nuclear Action under Federal environment protection law. This larger deposit involves much larger volumes of radioactive waste.

However radioactive waste is not the only environmental issue that will be magnified if Compass moves from the Oxide to the Sulphide deposit.

While the company claims that impacts of water use by the Browns Oxide project won’t extend beyond the Rum Jungle region, this confidence can’t stand up to the larger volumes of groundwater that would be consumed by the Sulphide project.

This second stage of mining operations proposed for Browns would present a much larger impact on local ground water, for a much longer period. This could result in significant detriment to the environment and other water users, even beyond Batchelor.

Unfortunately, the full extent of this and other impacts of the Sulphide project can only be guessed at. So far the company has been allowed to pursue the Oxide project without divulging important details of their full plans.