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Gavin Mudd - PhD Student
c/o P.O. Box 81, Watsonia, VIC 3087Email : GavinMudd@vut.edu.au
Tel (03) 9688 4106 - Fax (03) 9458 5055REPLY TO MR CHUCK FOLDENAUER
The response by Mr Chuck Foldenauer in the December 1998 Newsletter of the IAH failed to address my letter from the September 1998 newsletter, and I wish to make one final reply.
The IAH newsletter, as I would understand, is NOT for a forum for unwarranted personal and aggressive attacks on any individual or organisation. Mr Foldenauer’s unprecedented attempt to impugne my professional knowledge and integrity can only be seen as such an attack.
Mr Foldenauer, as was done in the EIS for Beverley, has clearly misunderstood the nature and intent of my letter and fails to establish a sound scientific basis for his claims. The use of semantics over words and phrases is essentially irrelevant and avoids the fundamental points of scientific or environmental importance :
I would be extremely happy to engage in the scientific debate concerning the standards being applied to Beverley and Honeymoon through the use of acid In Situ Leach technology. However, Mr Foldenauer, like those promulgating myths about Jabiluka and Lucas Heights, attempt to portray concerned citizens, scientists, professors and even the United Nations World Heritage Bureau as “biased, unscientific and underpinned by radical environmental groups”. The scientific merit of the concerns raised still remain unanswered.
- there has never been a commercial sulphuric acid ISL mine - for any element - in the western world before (the Florence Copper ISL project has been abandoned by BHP since early 1998, never realising a commercial mine);
- no environmental or economic advantage was found at sites in America thought suitable for acid ISL (ie low carbonate), and these sites were never commercialised due to the expense and difficulty of restoring groundwater to near baseline quality (eg - Nine Mile Lake, WY);
- there has never been any ISL mine in the world WITHOUT active restoration of groundwater after ISL mining.
My scientific crudentials and criticisms of the Beverley Project proposal have been strengthened by the ISL expert from the USA providing an independent assessment on the EIS to Environment Australia. The report (as quoted in the SA Govt’s EIS Assessment report) confirms uncertainties over the lack of groundwater quality characterisation (compared to expected standards in the USA), the degree of aquifer confinement (more rigorous aquifer tests are now underway), the inappropriateness of liquid waste disposal options, and the potential to contaminate the Great Artesian Basin given a worst case scenario.
I hereby voluntarily propose to prepare a technical and scientific paper/report detailing my concerns over the Beverley and Honeymoon projects and challenge, even dare, Mr Foldenauer to prepare his own paper. This material should be made available in hardcopy and/or via the internet. Fellow members of the IAH can then judge the quality and integrity of the scientific debate for themselves. Democracy and scientific rigour demands openness and accountability.
I also request that Mr Foldenauer reply in this issue of the IAH Newsletter and state his intentions :
Who is prepared to act in the public interest and not that of an aggressive corporate agenda ? Yours Sincerely,
Gavin Mudd
(Website : http://www.sea-us.org.au/isl/)
Note - This reply was sent to Chuck Foldenauer, and to the IAH Newsletter Editor.
Chuck refused to acknowledge or reply to this letter.
Page last updated April 9, 1999.