Cumulative Assessment of mining impacts

The cumulative impact of existing mines on local communities, water resources and the environment is not taken into account by Government when they assess and grant new mining development approvals. Coal giants like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have a stranglehold on the NSW Government and communities and the environment get short shrift from the bureaucrats who evaluate the merits of mining proposals.

Despite repeated calls from community environment groups and the Greens for the government to assess the cumulative impact of coal expansion on rivers, water catchments, threatened species, food security and the social cohesion of regional communities, little progress has been made to study the cumulative impact of mining approvals in coal affected regions of NSW.

At the first NSW Coal Communities forum held in 2006 over 50 community and environment groups came together to call for a moratorium on new mining approvals until a cumulative environmental assessment of mining could be carried out. The campaign for this study continues.

At the 2008 Mining and Water forum held in Orange NSW the Greens and the community again called on the NSW government to place a moratorium on the granting of new water licences to mines in the Murray-Darling Basin until an independent study is conducted on the cumulative impact of mining on water resources in the basin.

It is short sighted and reckless for Government to continue to rubber stamp new mine approvals and new exploration licences whilst ignoring the cumulative impact of those mines.

The following observations were taken from the 2007 report:

"The Sustainability of Mining in Australia"

"There remains, however, no previous study which has examined long-term trends in mining which are critical in understanding sustainability and mining. The principal issues include increasing production, declining ore grades (or quality), increased open cut mining and associated waste rock or overburden and remaining economic resources. Combined, these aspects are critical in quantifying the scale or footprint of mining, and also underpins the sustainability of mining.

"The unique study [The Sustainability of Mining in Australia] illustrates a number of key aspects concerning mining and sustainability:

• Production : gradually or exponentially increasing, which is likely to continue for some time;

• Ore Grades : gradually declining, unlikely to ever increase in the future with some metals likely to decrease by about half in the near future (eg. gold);

• Open Cut Mining : now widespread, likely to be sustained in the future though the long-term is hard to predict as new mineral deposits are likely to be deeper;

• Waste Rock / Overburden : increasing rapidly, likely to be sustained in the future and closely linked to open cut mining (especially for coal and base metals);

• Economic Resources : commonly increasing but some remain stable or gradually declining, future linked closely to exploration, technology and economics;

"From a sustainability perspective, these trends point to the scale of mines and the associated footprint gradually increasing in the future. This is due to the increased solid wastes (tailings and waste rock) per unit mineral / metal production caused by declining ore grades and increased waste rock and open cut mining.

"In terms of economic resources, this study demonstrates that for most minerals resources have actually increased over time despite increasing production (e.g copper, gold, nickel, mineral sands), but for some minerals rapidly increasing production is putting pressure on known economic resources (eg. iron ore).

"Ultimately, the sustainability of the mining industry continues to hang in the balance."

Reference: Mudd, G M, 2007, The Sustainability of Mining in Australia : Key Production Trends and Their Environmental Implications for the Future. Research Report No RR5, Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University and Mineral Policy Institute, October 2007; (page iii).

http://civil.eng.monash.edu.au/publications/

Sections

Cumulative Assessment of mining impacts

The following observations were taken from the 2007 report:

"The Sustainability of Mining in Australia"

Further reading

Document Actions