AGD History in Costerfield to 1998

A work in progress... 

Please don't take all of this as gospel. It was, we are discoveringas we delve deeper,  a speculative interpretation based on scant documentary evidence and is not entirely accurate. We'll update it soon. 

We are not Planning Officers. We are not specialists in permitting and regulation. And the available documents detailing the timeline under which mining in Costerfield has been undertaken are fragmented and confused. Different permits for different sites. Work plan variations by the score. And our records are unfortunately incomplete at this time.

Still we are able to provide a working chronology of mining operations and their supposed effects on the area by referencing those records we do have. Here is what we are finding.

AGD was given a permit in 1995 to rework tailings in the Costerfield area. This work proceeded through 1996. Exploration work also commenced.

Accompanying the Minutes of the ERC Meeting of 14 May, 1997, is the AGD Progress Report on Operations where we can read the following:

Exploration with costeaning and RC drilling was carried out in the Alison mine area. Costeans have been left open to facilitate shallow seismic exploration and geological mapping. These costeans will be backfilled as soon as all geological work is complete.

In the Minutes themselves we see our first example of questionable regulatory approval in order to facilitate the mine. There had, apparently, been a “Heritage Victoria issue” that required resolution since the last meeting. Thus:

Nice one Heritage Victoria! Well facilitated Department of Natural Resources and Environment. Well conceded City of Greater Bendigo.

At this time no mining was being conducted. Probably because the Permit had been called in by the Minister. Reports informing the Minister were being penned in April, as we shall see.

On the 17 June, 1997, then, after having been called in by the Minister – although we are unable to state on whose orders or what particular event(s) triggered this action – a new Permit 2448 was issued. The copy we have bears the Approved stamp from the Governor in Council.

We have some idea of the issues that brought the Permit to the Minister’s attention from the subsequent letter from the Deputy Premier’s Office in 1998. In that letter it is stated that there were concerns about dust. And antimony in water tanks. Recall the phrase “unlikely to be the sole cause”.

And it would seem that specific conditions were laid down in that document to deal with the particular issues facing Costerfield. So we have as Conditions 8(ii) and (iii):

 

It would appear that specially-prepared reports with recommendations for dust monitoring and the “regular representative sampling” of water supplies were presented to the Minister. Oh and “response management”.

Can we see these three reports?

We have previously stated in an email that Council amended Permit 2248 to specifically include this condition. As we now have an unamended Permit 2248 containing the Governor in Council’s conditions, we believe that this may not have been the case. It is possible, indeed likely, that the Permit was amended to include Condition 1(h) which had not been part of the Governor in Council’s Permit.

In any event, we end up, on 11 July, 1997, with Permit 2248 (Amended) that refers to the need for dust and noise monitoring, the regular checking of water tanks and the institution of a “response management” strategy in the area.

Yet the people of Costerfield were still concerned about AGD’s continued exploration. That the mine was leaving costeans open was, quite naturally, of some concern to residents close by. A local resident contacted Senator Lynn Allison with the results of some arsenic testing figures they had had performed. 

This is defoliation and disturbance that corresponds to the mine’s own admissions of uncovered costeans during its explorations; its seismic exploration. 

That’s exploration done with explosives…

And the results of the arsenic testing performed by Bendigo Agricultural and Scientific Services P/L on 31 October, 1997?

(Now, Department of Health people continue to cast all sorts of aspersions regarding the veracity of these and other claims regarding contamination that were made at the time. It was virtually presumed to be a fact that water tanks had been deliberately laced with arsenic and antimony-laden dust by disgruntled residents.

By 30 August, 1998, things must have worsened in Costerfield. Here is a newspaper story from the Herald Sun of that date declaring that the mine had closed and may never re-open because of dust. It contains unchallenged assertions that the dust was produced by the mine's activities. Note that uncorroborated claims of historical antimony contamination also make the rounds.

 (And, again, have a look at who is "threatened" by the "Health scare"!)

A letter was issued from the Minister's Office on 23 September, 1998, to the Shadow Minister for Environment, Conservation and Land Management in response to community concerns that the licence would be renewed.

Apparently a "naturally occurring health issue ... ha[d] existed at Costerfield since before the township was first mined last century".

Nice for us present-day Costerfield residents to have been informed of this, eh?

Apparently, too, a "prudent monitoring regime revealed this situation" and "necessary steps have been taken to understand and develop appropriate solutions". The mine was not "likely" to have been the "sole" contributor, but its construction was ceased.
 
At that time it was declared that:

Mining will not re-commence at Costerfield unless a strategy can be developed to ensure that the health of the community is not compromised. The environmental health issue is being progressed as a matter of priority by DHS and the Department [DNRE].



more soon...