Mines’ outflow ‘mostly to rules’
MINISTER for Environment and Heritage Protection Andrew Powell yesterday could not confirm that all the mine water pumped into the Fitzroy Basin met current environmental legislation.
A total of 28 mines have discharged water into the Fitzroy Basin with 10 mines releasing as recently as Thursday morning.
However, when The Morning Bulletin asked Mr Powell's office if there had been any breaches in that time, he was unable to give an official statement directly relating to that issue.
A spokesman from Mr Powell's office said the information could not be obtained by the time of print yesterday, but issued a statement explaining that "most" of the releases complied.
"Most of these mines releasing water are standard-practice releases and are in compliance with the conditions of their individual Environmental Authorities (EA) or approved Transitional Environmental Program (TEP) conditions."
The spokesman said the release was a small percentage of what went through the basin.
"In terms of cumulative figures, the total volume - including the BMA releases - was 6834 ML as of Thursday evening," he said.
"This represents only 0.23% of the total which has reached an astronomical level of almost 3,000,000 ML."
