Poison could devastate the Fitzroy

Rockhampton High School Year 12 students Jesse Naumann and Benjamin Harvey overlook the Mount Morgan open cut which contains 10,000 megalitres of highly contaminated water.

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A RIVER of poison one metre deep, 20 metres wide and 320 kilometres long would devastate the Fitzroy River system if it ever burst through the dam wall at Mount Morgan mine, councillors were told this week.

Farmer Denis George, a member of Wowan Dululu Landcare who has studied the toxic discharges from the mine and their impacts on the Dee River for decades, delivered a grim prediction in the council chamber.

He warned that should the unthinkable happen, huge quantities of contaminants – with the same ph as battery acid – would wash downstream and destroy Rockhampton’s supply of safe drinking water.

And his prediction of catastrophe worked. Rockhampton Regional Council’s Environment Committee immediately voted unanimously to lobby the State Government to pour more money into the rehabilitation of the mine.

The Department of Mines and Energy is seeking more funding to increase the capacity of a water treatment plant that is slowly emptying the open cut pit of its deadly contents – about 10,000 megalitres of water containing sulphuric acid and a cocktail of heavy metals.

Mr George said for more than 100 years Mount Morgan’s gold mine had been spewing sulphuric acid into the Dee River which was now “biologically dead” for 18 kilometres downstream.

Leakage from the pit continued to pour into the river and he raised concerns that to his knowledge no-one had ever bothered to test the sediment behind the Rockhampton Barrage to discover what heavy metals had worked their way through the system.

“No-one can say how much material containing toxic substances is flushing down the system, but if the dam wall at the pit failed there would be an environmental disaster,” he said.

Councillors heard that although the chances were slim of a torrential downpour washing material over the top of the pit, an earthquake fault line posed a real threat to the stability of the dam wall.

“We are asking the council to help bring pressure to bear on the government to give additional funding to the mine’s department to increase capacity of the treatment plant,” said Mr George.

“If the site is to be rehabilitated, the pit has to be de-watered.”

He said it was estimated full rehabilitation of the old gold mine workings would cost anything from $120 million to $200 million.

Mayor Brad Carter said he fully supported the efforts of the landcare group to protect the health and well-being of the river system and that the council would request that the State Government increase the level of financial support to rehabilitate the site.