Water: More precious than Gold
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Water: More precious than Gold
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Let’s be Fair… I believe in being fair, so I contacted Ross Mining at Timbarra, and invited their comments and suggestions to be mailed to me. I even suggested I would be willing to go up and talk with them. Call me Mohamed, but I decided it was time to go to the Mountain. After quite a few calls, I was sent a PR Package that was very nicely presented. A video was enclosed and some brochures. It all looked very gentle to the environment and the appearance of the information worked hard to give an appearance that the environmental effects would be kept to an absolute minimum. The video in particular almost astounded me, because it showed these loving caring people cradling frogs and moving wildlife away so the bulldozers wouldn't squash them… There was never a more caring and environmentally concerned company, the video would have us believe. No mention of the long term effects of Cyanide Gold extraction, only that Ross Mining were doing all possible to minimise impact. Fair enough… We all need a degree of good PR and we can't expect them to say bad things about themselves. The broken bones, and the heinous manner in which bringing in Mercenaries was considered seems to belie to some degree the presentation they offer the public… But like everything, these things just grow. I am sure Ross Mining did not want to mimic the manner in which Mining Companies in Africa conduct business… Bringing in Mercenaries is a keystone to many of the operations over there…. And I am sure it is simply co-incidental that the Managing Director of Ross Mining comes from Africa. He is white, needless to say. I find it easy to imagine him being incensed by these ridiculous Hippies stopping his legal Gold Mine, and I find it easy to imagine such a person may well have personally authorised such use of force… But there is absolutely no proof at all to confirm this. The only proof is a faxed message from Beachhead International, a mercenary organisation, stating that Ross Mining did indeed canvass them for the use of Mercenaries at Timbarra. But the PR material deals with no such things, of course, and we cannot expect it to. Concern is shown in the video over the potential for harming the ecology of the area, but no mention is made of the Pugh’s Mountain Frog, which I found curious as this is the one species that is under real threat from the mines activity. I BRING IN AN EXPERT... However, after many repeated phone calls, and a great deal of persistence I was given permission to visit the mine. Not to go in empty handed, I took with me one Hayo Van der Loude, an expert in cyanide method of leaching gold. Hayo has many years of experience behind him, and what is more, he has designed and implemented gold retrieval and cyanide gold leaching processes on a large scale. He was ideally suited to bringing a critical, clear view of the entire process from the professionals point of view. It was an arrangement I was very happy to agree to. Hayo asked specifically for one thing… The feasibility report that was the originating document for the commercial viability of the mine. He explained to me that the feasibility report would tell him pretty much everything he needed to know in regards the viability and long term aspirations of the Timbarra Project from the viewpoint of Ross Mining. I asked for this, a public document, but it was not provided. (Nor were any other relevant documents provided, I might add) I did locate a copy, however, and the application made under this report. The essential substance of this was that the actual Gold Mine does not correlate in practise to the Feasibility report. This, Hayo assured me, was not entirely unusual. When I mentioned that, by reports to the media, the mine was planning on closing until the value of Gold stabilised, he just smiled. When I added that it was looking to run only another six months, he replied, "That indicates to me that it will take them six months to recover capital costs. After this, they would have satisfied the bankers, and they could pretty much start up again at any time they pleased." "You don’t give much credit to the closure story?" I asked. "Mining Companies do not look to create a loss in any endeavour. They survive as much on shareholder confidence as minerals produced, and so it would seem to be that the fluctuating price of gold is a side issue. The drop in the Gold price alone would not be enough cause for the closure of the mine. "In essence the machinery there must be maintained, staff must be on hand to look after capital investments, and if you have both staff and machinery, you will probably have continuing mining. It may be at a lesser scale, but once capital costs are recovered, the price of gold is less important than the maintenance of the site. "The process of cyanide leaching is so simple that a six year old can understand the system… You just crush rock, stick it on a pile, flush it with cyanide, and recover the solutions resolved. Take out the gold and start again. "It is really simply a logistical problem of digging, crushing and moving rock, and with appropriate machinery this is not a major cost. I would suspect the story given out is for other reasons, but of course, I can’t say what these might be." Since this time, Ross Mining have sold Timbarra Gold Mine to another company, who has in turn on sold this project to yet another company. No reasons have been published for this apparently "unwanted" mine being sold so quickly, or why it has already passed through two hands in the last year. Certainly the legal threats must be a concern, and at the date of this writing a major case is being run in the Land and Environment Court. The outcome should be noted towards the end of this book. THINGS BEGIN TO UNRAVEL One thing is clear… No one is buying a Gold Mine they do not intend to use. No One pays good money for a project they intend to close. Hayo made further observations, which have been forwarded on. One of them was the apparent malpractice of sending Cyanide leach off into the wilderness at Timbarra. I wonder how Ross Mining stopped the Wallaby and Wombat from drinking this waste, as it was pumped out, by report and by my untrained eye, directly into the forests around the mine. Ross Mining got a severe rap over the knuckles for this. But more than this, Hayo pointed out simple and obvious things that they got wrong… To start with, they purchased the wrong equipment for the task… The rock crusher never worked properly. The amount of Gold in the ore was substantially less than they projected. The way they eve cut their rock shelves for ore extraction was wrong, and as Hayo said "It doesn't look as if they really ever intended to refill these holes, the way they have been cut…" I asked why, and he responded… "Well, it looks a very amateur operation. There are no shelves which means that refilling can only be done by dumping and bulldozing… Not a safe thing in the circumstances. "The Leach heaps are the highest I have ever seen, and they have been stacked like that to reduce cost. This puts added pressure on the liners underneath. "The overflow catchment dam is obviously being used to hold Cyanide solution, and this is being pumped back up to the holding dam, again something that is not permitted. And clearly, they are pumping out from the holding dam to the forest in order to send off the overflow. "The system they are using is not the type in their original feasibility study, itself not unusual, but the original concept in my opinion was more efficient." I asked about the effect of a spill or overflow of cyanide from the leach heap. "Really, that would be the lesser of the concerns here, I would think. Cyanide solution is very reactive, and will bind with anything it can. It probably would not last long enough to reach the Clarence. "Of course, there are simply no studies at all on the effect of the solutions and compounds that cyanide creates when it gets into the environment. This to me is the major fallacy of government approving these sorts of mines. "In the Western Deserts, there is really very little ecology as we know it to stuff up… But here… Well a small mistake could have vast consequences. The key element to understand is simply that there is a heck of a lot we just do not understand about Cyanide in the environment. "To be completely fair, this mine appears to be much cleaner and better organised than many of the mines in the deserts… But then again, there is far more at risk here should anything go wrong. Given the amount of gold being processed per tonne of ore, and given the situation in a wetlands area, it seems plain stupid to put a mine here." QUESTIONS TO ROSENGREN Ross Mining had just taken us on a tour of the establishment… It was an excellent bit of PR, but I had some questions for Michael Rosengren, the mine manager. The essential question he refused to answer directly, even though I asked it some three times over the few hours we were there… This was "Considering the difficulties, the protests, the police, the bad publicity… Considering all of this, do you think you would have gone ahead with the mine if you have known what lay ahead?" Michael Rosengren just would not answer that question directly, until finally he simply stated that despite everything, Ross Mining would 'probably' have gone ahead anyway. So I asked further… "Well, given that you opened a mine two hours away from the most active environmental group in Australia, and possibly the world… What steps did you take to educate the people in those areas?" It turned up that NO steps had been taken in that direction at all. Tenterfield had school excursions, and local council were spoken to, and local people were spoken to… But no one went up to where the trouble would most likely come from and speak to the people there. I personally found that to be quite astounding… Millions of dollars of Shareholders money being spent without even attempting to talk with the most likely source of trouble? Maybe they realised that no matter what they said to the folk of Nimbin, no one was EVER going to accept that a cyanide leach gold mine in a Highland wetlands area sacred to the Aboriginal was ever going to be accepted. And so they pursued a course of obvious conflict. What is more, it seems that every Australian has paid for this decision in huge increases in court costs and policing… All for a private company? I put this to the Mine Manager … "Really Michael… IS it right to expect the public to support, in effect, your private mine with Police? Is it right to have this extra strain on the legal system because of all the arrests and difficulties associated with your Mine?" The answer seemed clearly to frame the fact that they had a legal right to mine… The social question of being a burden to society did not seem to quite penetrate. Then I asked if any of the personnel from the Mine were involved with removing or dealing with protestors. This was the only direct lie Michael spoke that day. He said that he kept all of the Mine personnel away from any involvement with the protest. However, video footage shows huge rocks from the Timbarra site being moved to block roads and access on the back trails leading up to Timbarra. Video footage shows mine workers harassing protesters. Obviously, the Security personnel were paid for either directly or indirectly from the Ross Mining accounts. My comment that none of the security people seemed to wear ID pretty much went unheeded… I decided not to stress the point that this was illegal. WHAT ABOUT THE MERCENARIES? Then, finally, I asked about the mercenaries… Michael just laughed and said this was propaganda. When I stressed I had evidence of this, he asked "What evidence?" I pointed out that I had in my possession faxes from Mercenary companies confirming they had been approached by Ross Mining to patrol their perimeter and to deal with protestors. He wanted to know who these companies were, and who from Ross Mining had done this. I said that I could not divulge this information. For the first time I could see he was shaken. Why? Perhaps he realised how damaging that would be for the image of Ross Mining, but to press the point I stressed my concern… "You see, Michael… No matter how well a mine may be run, I have the obvious concern about tactics like the use of Mercenaries on Australian soil. This is a far more important issue to me than such things as potential mining problems with the use of cyanide. That damages the environment, potentially… But the use of mercenaries to protect private business operations creates a change in the entire social structure of our society. "I am sure you can see my concern." It seemed that the day had drawn to a close, and so I added on the way out the door… "You know… Regardless of what I believe to be right or wrong, as soon as you start stepping up the operation here again, the protestors will be back…" Michael nodded, and simply said "We have our finger on the pulse, and will know if anything is happening…" "Spies?" I thought… "They are using spies?" I guess it is obviously OK to protect your business interests… But I was left wondering as I left that meeting… How far would a private company like Ross Mining go to protect its gold? So I had stepped into the lions den. I had walked into the issue itself, and seen it first hand. What can I say of the experience? I am not sure, but I can certainly state that it seems a strange situation that a private company could even condone the use of mercenaries for the sake of a little gold. It struck me that this was more than just money, but PRIDE. How DARE those hippies tell US what to do! I got the overall feeling of "War… Sure we will have war if that's what you want!" Michael added as we were leaving… "You know… Head Office directed that no journalists or media be given access here. I decided personally that it would be best to talk to you, and I hope you will treat us fairly. I drove away seeing that the issues Ross Mining were fighting were not the same issues the protestors were resisting. Ross Mining say "We have the contract, the paper work… We have the RIGHT to Mine here." Protestors say, "No one has the right to destroy this cathedral" One is talking about personal rights, the other
about universal truths, or at least, universal beliefs... It is a formula bound
to argument and destined for destruction. NEXT: MERCENARIES MEETING RUSTY *
An Aboriginal Face *
RUSTY HARRIS |
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