Oh, and It Rains in Costerfield, Too! Catch Up!

When it rains in Costerfield, it pours.

Forty-six millimetres of rain and work has ceased at Splitters Creek. Farmers take note of rainfall. Of weather generally.

Mr Leask and Ms King advised the VCAT Members that Lot 2 is a catchment that provided 70% of their water for their home dam through run off. We don't reckon anyone but the Members believed them at the time.

A great big hole has been dug. Presumably it is the terminal dam of the facility. In any case, 46mm of rain has filled the hole and work has ceased.

(The regulators seem to forget about rainfall a lot out here. They forgot to look for it on an early water balance for the mine site.)

Before a DSDBI officer turned up, the water in this dam was about to be channeled out along the road and onto neighbouring properties! Seriously. After dust suppression using contaminated rainwater mixed with treated mine water, it was intended to allow the accumulated contaminants to flow over the road and onto a chemical-free farm.

 

(We'll speak elsewhere of the dispersive nature of these clays that, according to local knowledge, makes them poor candidates for use in constructing dams. Dams so constructed, leak. This contaminated water will be travelling straight down into the basement aquifer anyway, because at the moment that's a hole, not a dam.) 

But then everything seems to involve a game of catch up here. Forgotten, too, was the possibility of a dusty road! And that there was local traffic to be accounted for.

 

Had to pull over in our 4WD to let him hammer past.

One tanker driver has actually made a report to the police claiming a local resident driving a ute at 40 km/h ran him off the road! 

Costerfield residents usually travel at speeds under 40km/h. Because of the dust. 

You know, Community and consideration all that.

This road is to be used continuously for at least the next three months while construction proceeds during the dry and dusty - and dare we say windy - summer months. Temperatures regularly over 40 degrees and hot northerly winds.

The road will then be used by mine vehicles to service and operate the evaporation facility upon its completion. Indefinitely.

And so the solution to this long term heavy vehicular use of a country dirt road, used by locals and barely wide enough for a truck and a car to pass is to...

Spray EPA-approved treated mine water that has been blended with collected "putrid" rainwater that "stinks" and has been stored in a "rehabilitated pit" , over the road, into the gutters and onto the vegetation in a Box Iron Bark forest near a rural residential area.

Brilliant!

And what happens on the weekends when the trucks aren't suppressing the dust?

And how long is this going to go on?


Here's how an evaporation pond works:

Contaminated water is allowed to evaporate repeatedly over time, leaving behind an ever-increasing amount of solid toxic material. 

This is stored 'safely' in a terminal dam.

Here is how dust suppression works on the roads in Costerfield:

Contaminated water is allowed to evaporate repeatedly over time, leaving behind an ever-increasing amount of solid toxic material. 

This remains on the road and the roadsides and is blown about by the wind to add to the 'naturally occurring health issue' that the Department of Health is currently investigating.

Can you spot the difference?

The regulators are allowing Costerfield to become one big evaporation facility!

Has anyone informed the Department of Health?