Community Relations Incidents
Community working group on sulphur dust at Energy Resources of Australia
In early August 2005 a complaint was made to NT Worksafe (Northern Territory Occupational Health & Safety Regulatory Agency) by the owner of a neighbouring property adjacent to ERA' s sulphur stockpile facility in Darwin. The complaint concerned sulphur dust being blown from ERA’s stockpile onto the neighbouring property.
Following the receipt of the complaint a meeting was held with the neighbour, NT Worksafe and ERA representatives to discuss the issue. ERA immediately commenced more frequent clean-up of the sulphur to minimise the amount of dust created during the daily truck loading operations
ERA set up a working group to develop a set of options for the ongoing containment of wind borne sulphur dust from the Darwin sulphur storage facility in future years.
It is believed that that the introduction of the measures developed by the working group will minimise the amount of dust generated at the Darwin stockpile facility. This approach has been discussed with NT Worksafe representatives and agreed to by them. These measures will be in place for the next shipment which is due in May 2006. ERA will be closely liaising with all stakeholders to keep them advised of these.
Community forum on flooding at Borax
In February of 2005, approximately one million gallons of accumulated rainwater was unintentionally released into the Boron community when an operator created an opening in a berm on one of the east overburden sites. The incident was reported to state and local environmental agencies and was ruled as a non-citable issue. Samples of the runoff were collected and sent to an independent laboratory for testing which confirmed that the runoff was rainwater, containing no harmful chemicals.
Remediation steps by Boron Operations included plugging all openings on the overburden site, examining and re-sloping of the site in areas where water may collect near the dump crest, and enclosing the tortoise berm on Boron Avenue (the area of escape). In addition, meetings were held with all mine department personnel alerting them to the event, the potential consequence of action without discussion with the appropriate personnel, and clarification of the appropriate reporting mechanisms and requirements.
Letters were sent to the affected area residents and a community meeting was held to address concerns. Follow-up meetings were held with Kern County agencies including the Department of Roads and Engineering Services.
A second follow-up meeting was held with community residents outlining a proposed plan to correct the drainage concerns in their neighbourhoods as well as an explanation of the engineering steps required by the County prior to any modifications to existing drainage plans. The County is hampered by a lack of resources which has resulted in delay. Borax is continuing to work with the County and the community residents to complete the work on the drainage system.
Cultural heritage disturbances at Hail Creek
On the 29th November 2005, the team performing Cultural Heritage mitigation work south of the Ramp 0 haul road discovered ground disturbances where a poly pipeline had been laid without the required heritage permit. This discovery was reported to Hail Creek Mine and a formal Taproot investigation was conducted.
Through the investigation the following Root Causes were identified:
The meaning of "Disturbance" was not clearly understood
The process for the management of Cultural Heritage boundaries is not clearly defined
No effective plan, incorporating risk assessment, was compiled for the pipe installation.
Working in close cooperation with the Wiri People, the Aboriginal Traditional Owners for the Hail Creek area, a number of revised protective management measures have been implemented at Hail Creek to ensure that non-compliances of this sort do not reoccur. These key protective measures were:
Review the process for Ground Disturbance to ensure accurate & timely information is available to support communication of expectations to mine personnel.
Undertake further training & awareness of staff and contractors to reinforce the requirements for Cultural Heritage management.
Review the mine dewatering management processes to establishing systems integrating project management principles.
RTCA is driven by its commitment to developing its relationship and trust with the Wiri People. This is reflected in the importance placed on investigating all unauthorised ground disturbance and potential unplanned disturbances of Cultural Heritage.
Groundwater monitoring at Rössing
Rössing Mine conducted a groundwater quality investigation in the lower Swakop River, some 30km downstream of the mine, between 2004 and 2005. The results identified a uranium anomaly of levels of 0.15 milligrams per litre (mg/L) in the groundwater, three times the local background. An impact assessment of the samples indicated no radiological risk to groundwater users.
Subsequent investigations, including the drilling of seven boreholes, and the formation of a community working group (including local farmers), have found that the anomaly is stationary, indicating that the source is from local leaching (and not from potential historic Rössing mining contamination events). Monitoring within the region (conducted by the community working group) will continue in 2006 and the stakeholders will be kept informed of the results.
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