A GROUP of South Costerfield farmers who objected to Mandalay Resources' 30 hectare evaporation facility at Splitters Creek will take their fight to VCAT after it was approved by the City of Greater Bendigo this week.
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Chemical-free farmer Pamela King, who voiced concerns about local farmers’ livelihoods as a result of the mine’s current and future operations, maintained that Mandalay was draining water from the aquifer.
And its Cuffley antimony/gold discovery meant the company would need even more evaporation facilities, on top of the one just approved at Lot 2 South-Costerfield-Graystone Road, she said.
Ms King questioned council’s wisdom in approving the Splitters Creek evaporation facility largely on the basis of it providing 200 jobs.
“Everything depends on the almighty dollar,” she said. “But mines are here today and gone tomorrow, then they close and they’re gone and those 200 people are out of a job.
“Farmers are in it for the long haul.
“The fact that we are chemical-free takes years and years to build up, and this (facility) will ruin it for us.”
Ms King said the same authorities, EPA Victoria and GMW, that signed off on the Mandalay mine proposal had signed off on the Woodvale mine, “and Woodvale is an environmental disaster".
“Have they not learnt from previous mistakes?”
The group now plans to appeal the council decision in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal and to lobby the State Government for Mandalay Resources to undertake an EES.
