Misinformation in the Media - Some Call Them Lies

We've got three big pieces of misinformation that we know of already. We'll keep you posted as more arrive... sure as eggs is eggs there'll be more... and here's the first lot!

1. There was no roof on the crusher
When they eventually decided to institute their 'rapid health assessment' of the Community's concern that it was being poisoned, the DSDBI and Golder Associates - yes the mining facilitator and a private consultancy firm were investigating Health Issues -  "significantly reduced the dust" from the mine. One of the proposed measures was the placement of a roof on the ore crusher from which no dust was coming.

The Bendigo Advertiser of 6 August reported that

the company was making changes in their operation to alleviate concerns.

"We have relocated the crusher, which some believe is causing the dust (pollution) and this is now protected by walls and has a roof on top of it"...

Take note of the precise details here: it is now protected by walls and has a roof on top of it.

Sounds like excellent news, eh? 

Except it was not true.

There was no roof on the crusher. And there were no walls protecting it.

As a subsequent story from the Bendigo Advertiser dated 12 August revealed 

Mandalay Resources sustainability manager Andrew Mattiske was quoted in the Bendigo Advertiser on August 6 saying the crusher had a roof on it.

But he has since retracted his quote, confirming there is currently no roof.

"The roof has been ordered and will be installed at the end of August," he said.

"The decision to include the roof and relocate the crusher comes as we review the potential source of dust."

Where were the protective walls?

One would be willing to dismiss this as mere detail and a slip-up were it not for the fact that no attempt was made to correct the first story. The falsity of the report was raised by an observer at the August ERC meeting. Assurance was received that attempts would be made to change the online story (the lie had already been printed in the newspaper). Cr Helen Leach, who chaired the meeting mediated the exchange, and it was heard by Colin Thornton of DSDBI. It was recorded in the Minutes. And yet it was left to the Community observer to hound the Advertiser's reporter into chasing up the truth (and to her great credit she followed through). Cr Leach was willing to live with the lie. As was Mr Thornton.

And, in fact, there is still no roof on the crusher. It has a "cover". Now technically all roofs are covers, but not all covers are roofs. Think about it.

This is the "cover" that has been placed over the crusher. It is a tunnel. And it was not fitted until over three weeks after the initial fraudulent claim was made to the media. Protected by walls.




2. The problem wasn't with the local doctors
Costerfield residents, concerned that they were being poisoned by the dust they could see being emitted by the mine, undertook to have themselves tested for the heavy metals antimony and arsenic. Elevated levels were discovered in many members of the Community (though, fortunately, not at "industrial levels" as one toxicologist comfortingly announced at the Open House Community Meeting held in the Heathcote RSL, as if that was supposed to be reassuring to private citizens living rural lives).

The Department of Health then arrived on the scene. Accompanied by the omni-present Golder Associates and, without having conducted any human testing of their own - they still haven't; residents must pay for their own - declared that the testing had been compromised by contaminated bottles in the laboratory because they couldn't understand the distribution of the contamination. (Hint: AUSPLUME is just sooo last century.)

Some of the samples provided by the residents were split and placed in brown-capped bottles unfit for the storage of antimony-containing samples because they contained antimony themselves, as part of the manufacturing process. In a NATA accredited laboratory.

The ABC's 7:30 Report featured a piece on Costerfield. This allowed the Government and Regulators to disseminate the lie to the people of not just Costerfield, but the whole of Victoria. And to defame the Costerfield and Heathcote doctors who had organised sampling for their patients. This had the effect of belittling the claims of the concerned residents who had been poisoned in the eyes of fellow locals and of undermining the reputations of, and confidence in the local doctors, an essential hub of any Community, but especially rural Communities.

At 3:56 in the video, Dr Shaun Greene of the Department of Health can be clearly heard to state :

Dr Greene: We know now that there's been problems in terms of the container that the urine was collected in. [Emphasis added.]

ABC: That that contained antimony itself (?) 

This is a lie. 

The "problem in terms of container" stems, as we have noted above, from the splitting of the samples and the bottles employed after the collection AND NOT from the bottles employed by the Costerfield and Heathcote doctors that the initial samples were "collected in". And Dr Greene should be fully aware of this.

The Department of Health has been confronted with this fact on numerous occasions but is yet to offer any response or withdrawal of this patently false claim. 

Close examination of the ABC's video reveals that Dr Greene's computer monitor displays a graph indicating that the "RPA [Royal Prince Alfred] stopped splitting samples" on June 30...



3. There was expansion and an increase in production rates at the mine
This is the Napthine government in election mode telling porky pies to the people of Bendigo and Victoria in order to play politics with the health and well-being of the people of Costerfield.

Readers of the blog will know that our contention - so far uncorrected by anyone - is that dust emissions from the mine (emissions that had been unmonitored since February 13, 2006), emissions of vapourised antimony and arsenic in the ore, as well as the chemical cocktail created by blasting underground, were blown about the countryside and into people.

This could happen if, say, the production underground increased to a point at which the new Cuffley ventilation system, built to cope with the ever-expanding mine, was somehow overstretched, adding to the unmonitored toxic cocktail already being emitted. On 11 September, 2014, an anonymous "government spokesperson" told the Bendigo Advertiser (seems everyone lies to the Addy!) that

"Suggestions that an expansion of the Mandalay mine activities at Costerfield led to increased dust deposition levels are unfounded.

"Mandalay Resources have not substantially changed their underground mining activities or production rates from the approvals granted in 2006 under the former Labor government."

This is a lie. Not unfounded at all.

Don't believe us? Ask the General Manager of Mandalay Resources, who had told the Bendigo Advertiser on 29 August that:

[the] Costerfield Operations had now accessed all areas required for ore production for the 2014 financial year and early 2015 production.

"The mining rates towards the new Cuffley ore body were completed well in excess of anticipated rates," he said.

In case there is any doubt about expansion, the Bendigo Advertiser had reported on 24 June that "Bendigo mine expansion gets green light". And we are not just talking about deposited dust, but also particulate emissions. 

Cumulative impacts.

***

What are we going to do about this?