Category Archives: Background Information

Background Information

Mine rehabilitation – What do they owe the land?

On 5^th February SOMR representatives visited a property in the Rockdale region near Armidale. Unsatisfactory efforts have been made to rehabilitate an unused mining lease located on a private property.

The issue was brought to SOMR’s attention because of its potential impact on the Macleay Catchment via the Wollomombi River. There are concerns about land stability, soil contaminants entering the waterways and plastic rubbish brought onto the site in poor quality mulch intended to replace topsoil.

Meetings with Major Stakeholders

After the wonderful success of the Paddle on the Macleay, the SOMR committee turned its attention once more to fact finding about Hillgrove Mines and the contamination of the Macleay River. SOMR, as recently as last week had several positive meetings with the major stakeholders, those being Bracken Resources of Hillgrove Mines, representatives of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and scientists from the University of New England (UNE). Below contains a link to a report about each of the meetings. The Hillgrove Mines as well as EPA representatives were given the opportunity to correct or add to the SOMR accounts and responded with some clarifications which we included.

Dr Susan Wilson from UNE summarized their findings about the Macleay River catchment in the attached letter to SOMR.

November Highlights

UNE letter to SOMR