Sydney Morning Herald August 14, 2008 Reporter Ben Cubby
A year after it was warned that toxic pollution leaking from an old coal mine in the Blue Mountains world heritage area had wiped out life in a river, the NSW Department of Environment is yet to act.
New tests have shown that the zinc-contaminated water spilling into Dalpura Creek, near the Grose River, contains levels of toxic metals more than 200 times the safe limits for marine life.
Fish have been elminated for some kilometres downstream of the disused Canyon Colliery, said University of Western Sydney researcher Ian Wright, who has been collecting and comparing water samples for over a decade.
"Without any equivocation, it is run-off from the mine that is killing life in the river," Dr Wright said. "Given that this is happening in a world heritage area, you have to wonder what is happening in areas that aren't as protected."
Dr Wright's most recent samples, taken in late May, show water filtering through the old mine picks up zinc and other heavy metals, before spilling out into Dalpura Creek, which runs down a gorge into the Grose River.
Each litre of contaminated water carries up to 2000 micrograms of zinc per litre. Eight micrograms per litre is considered the maximum safe limit for the tiny marine invertebrates which are the foundation of the river food chain.
The Department of Environment was briefed on Dr Wright's findings last August. It told the Herald in early May that it was investigating.
However, in a statement on Wednesday night, the department said an investigation into ways of stopping the flow would only begin after a tender process ended on August 28.
"While metal concentrations have fallen by an order of magnitude in the past 10 to 15 years, and will in all likelihood continue to fall, the levels will remain significant for some time," said the department's deputy director general, Joe Woodward.
The environment department is taking the problem "very seriously" and cooperating with the Department of Primary Industries, which has responsibility for managing the mine site, to look at ways of staunching the water flow, Mr Woodward said in his statement.
When the Canyon Colliery stopped operating in 1999, "no treatment option considered technologically or environmentally feasible at the time", he said.
The mine is discharging thousands of litres of zinc-laced water into the creek each day, with the amount varying depending on local rainfall.
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The following letter (which sums up the issue completely) was sent to the Sydney Morning Herald :
From: Caroline [mailto:rivers@bigpond.net.au]
Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:57 AM
To: 'letters@smh.com.au'
Cc: Ben Cubby, SMH Env. Reporter
Subject: reply to Ben Cubby's article 14.8.08
The Letters Editor
The Sydney Morning Herald
Dear Sir,
The high levels of toxic zinc leaching into the Grose River, from one of dozens of abandoned mine sites in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment, was well covered by Ben Cubby yesterday (14.8.08).
This scandalous situation highlights the inability of either the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) or the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA) to protect our catchments and rivers from escalating mine damage.
This failure can be put down to the Iemma Government's short term dependence on coal royalties. It lets the mining corporations ride roughshod over our environment - literally.
But effects on water resources is a serious matter for the driest continent, in an era of increasing drought.
Senior bureaucrats in both DECC and SCA are well aware of growing problems of contamination and depletion of water resources due to mining.
An internal document leaked from DECC in May notes that acid mine drainage is of particular concern, as are the "devastating effects" of subsidence on local rivers and the leaching of minerals and other contaminants into the ground water and surface flows.
Likewise, a July submission from SCA calls for improved guidelines for mining "to better reflect the importance of water resources", given serious impacts such as riverbed cracking, loss of surface flow and deterioration of water quality.
It is high time citizens started expressing some concern over their water resources, because this government will do nothing to upset the mining companies otherwise.