CANADIAN mining company Mandalay Resources has rejected claims that the water it pumps from its operations at Costerfield is toxic or that is draining water from local creeks.
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I am 100 per cent positive the water is safe
- Andrew Booyzen
Responding to fears voiced by Costerfield farmers that its mine water was unsafe and the Wappentake Creek is being drained, Mandalay Resources Australian Operations general manager Andre Booyzen said chemical elements such as arsenic, copper, calcium and lead in the 1.4 megalitres of water a day pumped from the mine, were not at toxic levels.
Nothing was added to the water, he said - it was pumped from the ore body to prevent the mine from flooding, and those elements occurred naturally in the ground.
He said farmers’ bore water had a higher salt content than the water being pumped from the mine.
“I am 100 per cent positive the water is safe,” he said.
Mr Booyzen also said the company was not dewatering Wappentake Creek and maintained it was an ephemeral, not a permanent creek. “All the data I have seen, from the EPA, from the Goulburn-Murray Water authority, is that we are not dewatering the aquifer.
“I can only go on what the authorities are telling us.”
Mandalay Resources’ Costerfield operation mines gold and antimony on 10 hectares of leased farmland - the only antimony mine in Australia.
This year it produced about 6000 tonnes of antimony and about 20,000 ounces of gold.
The mine employs 200 people plus 30 contractors and it expects to employ another 15 to 20 people with the mine’s expansion.
In a controversial decision on Wednesday, the City of Greater Bendigo approved the miner’s planning application for a new $2.5 million evaporation facility and pipeline on 30 hectares at Splitters Creek (Lot 2 South Costerfield-Graytown Rd).
The facility was approved by a majority of councillors subject to 18 land, air, water and noise conditions.
Mr Booyzen said the new evaporation facility was needed because the mine had run out of evaporative capacity.
New antimony and gold deposits found in the Cuffley lode had added another four or five years to the mine’s life, he said.
Earthworks on the evaporation facility, to comprise tiers and a 80 megalitre storage dam, were expected to be completed by April-May.
Mr Booyzen promised there would not be problems with the evaporation facility drying out and blowing off toxic dust, as had occurred at the troubled Woodvale mine.
"We will never alow it to dry out," he said.
Mandalay has also applied to the Environment Protection Authority for a 2 megalitre reverse osmosis plant to replace its small 500,000 litre plant, which purifies water and returns it to Tin Pot Gully Creek.
