Reply to Ms Mansfield's Response to our Letter

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On 10 November, after being excluded from the 6 November Environmental Review Committee meeting because we "are writing a blog attacking the mine", we wrote to the City of Greater Bendigo Council. Of course, the accusation is mistaken. 

We are writing a blog attacking the regulators.

On 17 November, we received this unhelpful reply from Ms Prue Mansfield, the City's Director of Planning and Development.

Below is our response. This is some of the lunacy we are talking about.

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Dear Ms Mansfield,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my deeply held concerns regarding the conducting of the ERC Meeting on 6 November.  

I note your admission of the inability of Council to even ensure community attendance at these meetings; even in an observer’s role. It seems once again, that the regulators and the regulations have allowed any semblance of responsibility towards and concern for the community to be wrenched from the very community impacted upon by these mineral extraction operations you are continuing to permit. And the Chair has no power. We’d already seen that in action.

Thank you for confirming that the decision as to whether or not an ERC meeting can be “open” or “closed” rests squarely in the lap of the mining company. Is this a satisfactory state of affairs, Ms Mansfield? Should anyone have the ability to deny an affected community member the right to attend such a meeting?

Please do express an opinion so that I and the Costerfield community may be able to judge whether your and our priorities are the same. Is this - the effective if misguided steamrolling of community dissent - a situation you would like to see changed so that the community can have some role in determining its own future?

Or not?

Are you satisfied at the level of access that the community has had with regards to its ability to make meaningful contributions in response to the continued and continuing incremental expansion of this mining operation over time? Since the community itself is not satisfied and Council claims to serve the community interests, where does that leave us? You? What processes are you prepared to set in motion to ensure that concerned community members are allowed to voice their concerns at the relevant meetings? What do you think should occur, now?

We have a lot of very serious issues with the way things have been and are being run, and you, Ms Mansfield, palm us off over here, and the EPA palms us off over there, but the DSDBI says it’s all your fault, and then the mine removes us from its property.

We thought we had a ‘whole of government’ response put in place to address our concerns a few months back, but this seems to have meant only that we would be wholly ignored by the Government. The departmental jigsaw puzzle you function within as part of your job, that we, the Public, pay you to do, is not familiar to us. If we were facilitated in our ability to raise our concerns to the same level that the mine is facilitated in disposing of its groundwater, raising its dam walls and sinking its bores, there may be a few less angry emails banging back and forth. Some people have the Mining Minister on speed dial; we don’t.

I note the repeated duck-shoving that is taking place here. Council handballs it to EPA or DSDBI. “Our powers aren’t limitless.” Neither it would seem are DSDBI’s. Ms Kylie White sent us a letter regarding this project in which she slaps responsibility for the mess on Council; on you:

In regards to our responsibilities in this matter, DSDBI monitors and regulates the requirements of licences, work plans and work plan conditions issued or approved under the MRSDA. Planning permits are issued and regulated by the relevant planning authority, which in this case is the City of Greater Bendigo.

DSDBI’s role is to ensure that Mandalay Resources, as the licence holder, comply with their requirements under the MRSDA and respond to any concerns from the community about their conduct. The City of Greater Bendigo is responsible for confirming compliance with the requirements of the planning permit as the responsible authority and their input is essential in DSDBI determining if the work plan and conditions are consistent with the planning permit and appropriate.

The City of Greater Bendigo is responsible for confirming compliance with the requirements of the planning permit as the responsible authority and providing appropriate input in determining that the work plan and conditions are consistent with the planning permit.

Perhaps give Ms White a call and decide between the both of you exactly what it is each of you is prepared to do on our behalf to stop the regulations from allowing this mining company’s permitted activities from continuing to ride roughshod over the Costerfield community. Balance. The mine has been given the power to exclude the community from ERC meetings because it is their property. But I don’t have the power to keep mining off my land. Do I?

I note once again the lack of community consultation in this whole debacle. Residents received no notice from Council that works were commencing. The Work Plan was quickly stamped and three weeks later unmonitored works commenced on Lot 2. Work had already commenced on Lot 1 a week prior to that. Between June, when the permit was completed, and October, when the Work Plan was signed, no preparatory work was performed on properties around the site. No Council representative contacted the residents at any stage to find out if they had any concerns regarding the upcoming development; whether they were satisfied with the process thus far; what assistance they may need as the project continued; who they could call to have any concerns addressed. This was a development that had been treated so seriously by the residents that they had taken Council to VCAT.

We would have told you about the need to seal the road. Remember, Lot 2 is five kilometres from the mine site and lies along a dirt road.

Seriously. Did absolutely no one think about the road? The roads are dusty in Costerfield. There will be a need to cart water along the South Costerfield-Graytown Road for the next three months at least while construction proceeds during summer. And for how long after that? Why is the road not sealed? When will the road be sealed?

Is this really an exercise in dust suppression or is it another method to facilitate the mine’s disposal of the obviously excessive amount of groundwater it is being allowed to remove?

Perhaps you can ask EPA and DSDBI and G-MW on our behalf. Please do get back to us with their reply.

If the water cannot be disposed of by methods other than ‘dust suppression’ on the Costerfield roads, then it would seem Mandalay’s dewatering allowance of 700ML/year is too great. As the situation stands the mine is in a better position to deal with its over-apportionment of toxic waste water than it was when toxic waste water was allowed to be trucked fifteen kilometres along a main road, a highway and through the town of Heathcote to the disused Heathcote Pit! 
(The Heathcote-Nagambie Road still bears the dangerous scars of the endless parade of water tankers in its potholes and ragged corners. Is Council doing anything about that?)

The South Costerfield-Graytown Road, on the other hand, is going to be used by Mandalay Resources for the foreseeable future. Years it would seem. Is Council satisfied that the spraying of toxic waste water (it has been stored in something called a ‘rehabilitated pit’ for goodness sake!) onto the South Costerfield-Graytown Road should continue, day in and day out for the next… say, five, perhaps ten years?

As you will no doubt be aware the principles underlying an evaporation facility are that water evaporates and leaves solid toxic contaminants behind in ever-increasing amounts. So we keep them “safe” in a terminal dam. When this or similar water is sprayed on the road and forest for three months it also evaporates and leaves solid toxic contaminants behind in ever-increasing amounts. But in Costerfield these contaminants get to lie on the road and in the bush and then blow about the district and poison us.

Have you informed the Department of Health about this possible disruption to their testing regime?

Do you actually have a plan that addresses this potential problem? Or are you just winging it again? Or is it the EPA’s problem? EPA says the water is safe apparently; we say it stinks. Smell… safe or not, that's adverse amenity.

Council has received numerous complaints from residents regarding noise and dust. And the response? Arrange an inspection of the site, travel all the way to Costerfield and then neglect to pop across the road to talk to the very people who have raised the concerns.

Just a little hint. If you want to see whether the mine is abiding by the conditions of the Permit DON’T call it up and allow it an hour’s notice to ensure the roads are watered, remind its contracted drivers to slow down to a cautious speed on the public road and check that the machinery is operating below acceptable noise and dust levels. We don’t believe anyone is so naïve as to think that the mine would not do that to ensure compliance, it's only natural; consequently, we don’t exactly know why anyone would not have followed our hint already…

This is more than a matter of politeness, decency and fairness, although that should be enough. It is a matter of you doing your jobs as Public Servants. Of responding to the landowners, ratepayers and voters of Bendigo as per Council’s policy of Community Consultation. If a resident calls up and complains, please respond to the resident. It is patently obvious who is calling the tune here. When the Mayor visited Costerfield to assess a community complaint regarding work at the site, did he bother to contact the community? At all?

It is our belief that the Permit still has some importance here, whether you are going to bother enforcing it or not (“and the usual result from VCAT is to give a company some time (months) to bring an issue into compliance” – so let’s not bother at all then, is that what you are saying? A couple of months of non-compliance is better than the next ten years, isn’t it, Ms Mansfield?) There is a condition on the Permit that reads:

The use permitted by this permit must not, in the opinion of the responsible authority, adversely affect the amenity of the locality by reason of the processes carried on; the transportation of materials, goods or commodities to or from the subject land; the appearance of any buildings, works or materials; the emission of noise, artificial light, vibration, smell, fumes, smoke, vapour, steam, soot, ash, dust, waste water, waste products, grit or oil; the presence of vermin, or otherwise.

Trucks full of waste water barrel dangerously along a public road at breakneck speed. The water they spray is putrid. It stinks. Smell. Heavy metals. Dust. Waste water. “In the opinion of the responsible authority” – that’s you guys, not the EPA or anyone else – does or will the spraying of this vile, putrid water – that has been sitting in a ‘rehabilitated’ pit leaching toxic materials – about the roads and roadsides of Costerfield during the dry summer months, adversely affect our amenity? The dangerous trucks? What do you need to be told to convince you that this is the case? You say your powers aren't limitless; do you have any powers at all to stop this?

Ms Mansfield, you have claimed responsibility for the Permit. Why is Lot 1 and the Crown Land not on the Permit? How did that oversight occur? The VCAT decision specifically names Lot 1 as Subject Land with regards to the construction of the Evaporation Facility, and yet no mention is made of “Lot 1 & Lot 2 and the Crown Land between these lots and the mine site” in the Permit. As a consequence works commenced on Lot 1 in contravention of the VCAT Decision.

Has a Planning Permit been issued for Lot 1, yet? Will you make a copy of that available to us please? And can we please also receive a copy of the EPA-appointed Environmental Auditor’s Certificate? We have asked for this already but to no avail. Please do not ask us to pay for these documents as Ms White so patronisingly did. Sheer arrogant evasion from someone who claims her Department’s “role” is to “respond to any concerns from the community”.

Planning contortions developed to over-facilitate the mining company’s requirements mean that building a five kilometre poly pipeline between the mine site and Splitters Creek and pumping water along its length from one place to another – from one Mining Licence to another – somehow does not constitute the water leaving the mine site. So, in effect, the mine site has been expanded to incorporate two separate mining licences, with a plastic pipe full of waste water acting as a kind of umbilical cord to make the two into one.

How has this occurred without reference to the “cumulative impacts” noted in the Precautionary Principle which underlies the Rio Declaration and to which Council is a signatory? The mine is no longer just ML4073. It now encompasses a further Mining Licence, ML5567.

What is your plan for the future development of this mine?

Please do examine the plans for Lot 2 and advise us how they do NOT indicate that the Splitters Creek Evaporative Facility is likely to be expanded so as to encompass Lot 1 also. That option is certainly open, is it not? Ask and ye shall receive seems to be the order of the day. No mining licence was required to construct this evaporative facility. Does Mandalay Resources intend mining on this land, too? Council will without doubt approve any extension since it will examine such development, as it always has done, in isolation from the rest of the operations, not as an incremental expansion. “On its merits.” Whatever that may mean.

What is your plan for the future development of this mine?

How extensive is the intended expansion of this mine? This is no longer a short term venture. The current mine has been present and has extended that presence considerably for and over the last decade. It is not going away. How big have you planned for it to get?

Do you think this is why Councillor Chapman asked me why I did not approach the mine and sell my land?

What is your plan for the future development of this mine?

How big is this mine going to be allowed to get before you react? You should have some idea because it has been here since 2003 and you keep on letting it grow. You are examining its expansion, aren’t you?

Please do visit our blog. We think that you will find the following documented posts very informative. They will also go some way to indicating to you why we are very angry.

Respirable Dust and Evaporative Ponds

100km/h Winds in Costerfield

Respirable Dust and the Regulators – Grey Plumes? Oh, That’d Be the Blasting!

Inversion Break-up Fumigation

The Vindication of Mrs Margaret McAfee

Put the Drive Way and the Diesel Tank Right There.

This is what the regulators, you among them, have allowed to transpire in Costerfield because you won’t address the expansion of the mine and apply the Precautionary Principle as you are required to do.

Please do also read our Letter to the Minister II – Best Practice Required post. You will see there that we are neither anti-mining nor anti-this mine. That is why we wished to attend the ERC meeting. We have constructive solutions that do not entail closing the mine, despite what you may suspect. If we are going to have to have a mine we want the best mine you can make it. And so we want you and your people to do your jobs properly and remember that you have a duty of care over the people of Costerfield and of Bendigo that should trump the over-facilitation of mineral extraction. Precautionary.

The people of Costerfield feel they are a little more important than a couple of holes in the ground. It would be nice to see that you agreed with us and to receive some assistance in maintaining our community’s health and well-being. And our ability to have our say.

For now, though, it seems, we must wait another three months in order to be inevitably excluded from the next ERC Meeting.

Thanks for your offer of support. Oh, that’s right, you didn’t offer any.

Thanks again for your time, then.

Regards

Steve Blackey