Ben Lomond Uranium Project History
Originally partly owned by CFP/Total (formerly Minatome), France's second largest uranium producer after Cogema, the Ben Lomond deposit has changed hands from Total to Cogema, and more recently to Anaconda Uranium Corporation of Canada in July 1997.
In 1971 Total was awarded a uranium mining lease at Ben Lomond, 60 km west of the coastal city of Townsville, an area which has long interested geographers and naturalists (27) and which it had begun exploring some years previously. (In fact, evidence of uranium on the site was discovered as long ago as 1881, although it was not until 1975 that the deposit was formally located) (28).
Initial plans were for an open-pit mine, to be followed by an undergound mine with production of about 200 tonnes/year U3O8 from recoverable reserves of 2,000 tonnes. An estimated US$A50 million would be needed to establish the mine and processing plant (29).
The Queensland regime's eagerness to get the mine underway hinged on plans to site a uranium enrichment plant in Townsville - one proposal for which, at an estimated A$1000 million, came from Minatome itself in October 1979 (30).
Two months later, a French CEA delegation to Queensland discussed a possible US$5000 enrichment plant, while claiming that it was more important for such a plant to be near cheap power and water than a uranium mine.
Officially the Minatome lease was granted in early 1980 (31) but, a year previously, the state Minister for Mines, Energy and Police (sic), Ron Camm, announced that the mine would be given a quick go-ahead, in a statement made well in advance of completion of an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) (27). Attempts by the Townsville Regional Conservation Council, the Queensland Conservation Council, and individuals, to intervene in the public process, were rejected as irrelevant by Camm (55) who, in an interview with Denis Reinhardt, claimed: "If I had to listen and take notice of protests against the issue of a mining lease anywhere in Queensland and listen to the people in close proximity of that mining lease, there would be very few mining leases ever issued" (32).
Not only did the state government refuse to consult with the Townsville City Council and local shires (authorities), it also altered the Mining Act, thus allowing its Mines Department to over-rule local authorities, and it doctored procedures for conducting EIS's - by dropping the term "Environmental" from the rules (27). Meanwhile, Minatome itself had been playing underhand games. Its first application for a lease was made as long ago as August 1976, but concealed in a small circulation newspaper, thus escaping the attentions of the very active anti-uranium mining movement in the state. The application got the approval of the Mining Warden at Charters Towers. An authority to prospect was granted in July 1978 and, although the company stated nearly 18 months later that it still hadn't approval for its lease, the Queensland government was protesting it was "too late" for objections to be heard (33).
Between them, the Queensland government and the mining company effectively undercut a growing opposition to the mine. (Local surveys showed a majority of residents opposed to the project (34); and there had already been an anti-uranium march, in spite of the state's draconic ban on all such demonstrations).
From this point on, opposition mounted dramatically. Peter Valentine, a senior lecturer in geography at the Townsville James Cook University, described the government's processing of the lease as "horrific" and said there appeared to have been a deliberate attempt to avoid public debate. The Australian Telecommunications Employees Association (ATEA) in February 1981 imposed communications bans on Minatome. The union's State Secretary, Ian McLean, justified them with the words: "It is much more difficult to stop a mine already operating than to prevent a mine getting underway, and that's what we are trying to do at Ben Lomond" (35). The Movement Against Uranium Mining (MAUM) also announced a "tent village" at Ben Lomond, to be held that summer (36).
The opponents' case depended not only on previous experience in the uranium industry, but Minatome's existing practice at the mine site. These were summarised by the Queensland Campaign Against Nuclear Power (CANP):
"Already radiation levels 160 times the permitted level have been recorded in the mine. "The clay which Minatome plans to use for the earth tailings dam dissolves in water, and will let contaminated water pass through. The nearest suitable clay is hundreds of kilometres away, and half the known deposits of this type of clay in Australia would be required to adequately line the dam.It was the Townsville Regional Conservation Council (TRCC), backed by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), which spearheaded legal opposition to Minatome's proposals, and this reached a climax in April 1981 when the company applied for an additional lease of 2035 hectares to cover a uranium-molybdenum tailings dam, access road and camp (38)."When the river level falls during the dry season, the contamination will be more concentrated where radioactive particles of silt accumulate in the remaining waterholes.
"Already a level of radioactivity two and a half times the legally permitted level has been recorded in a creek which flows into the river. This was from a stockpile of 3500 tonnes. When the mine is in operation, the stockpile will be two and a half million tonnes.
"There is no way of enforcing the responsibility of the mining company after the mine has closed. After the ten-year life of the mine, when profits and uranium will have been sent to France, Minatome will have no further interest in the abandoned mine or the people living in the area affected by it" (37).
The TRCC based its case on several issues:
(i) an inadequate (E)IS which failed to evaluate the effects of the tailings dam and its possible collapse, radioactive emissions to the atmosphere, the impact on fauna and flora, capacity to cope with "extreme rainfall events", and which also failed to lay down proper rehabilitation procedures (39);In response, the Mining Warden rejected Minatome's application - an "historic decision" (at least in the Queensland context) (40) based on environmental considerations. He found that there was no proper long-term arrangement for the containment of tailings. He questioned the appropriateness of clay as a liner for the evaporation ponds and tailings dumps. Taking into account natural erosion and the extremely high rainfall which might be expected during the cyclone season, he doubted the company's ability to effectively isolate toxic materials and, in particular, prevent their discharge into Keelbottom Creek and thereby the Burdekin River. Concluded the Warden:(ii) incidents of radioactive leaching from an ore stockpile, and lack of radiation control on the existing Minatome campsite. Documents produced by the company itself demonstrated the appalling carelessness with which these matters had been regarded. Hermann Schwabe, a West German environmental engineer, stated that methods of waste containment and tailings dam sealing, as proposed at Ben Lomond, had not even been known to survive spans "below fifty years" (39).
Neil Heinze, a local civil engineer, also claimed that radioactive leakage was "certain" to occur from the site, while all artificial methods of containment were inadequate.
Professor Frank Stacey, Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Queensland, predicted that inevitable radioactive leaking would pollute the Burdekin river system, especially as the proposed dam across the river would "ensure that heavy pollutants tend to accumulate in the reservoir and any area in which water from the reservoir is used, instead of being flushed out to sea" (39);
(iii)the escape of chemical pollutants, particularly heavy metals and radionuclides, into the surface and groundwater systems associated with Keelbottom Creek (the tributary from the Burdekin river next to the mine), from the proposed milling and treatment plant;
(iv) non-radioactive contamination by trace metals, such as copper, lead, zinc and cadmium. Ian Campbell of the Caulfield Institute of Technology's Water Studies Centre addressed this particular hazard.
"I am of the opinion that the public interest or right may be prejudicially affected if the Mining Lease is granted at this stage ... I recommend to the Minister that this application be rejected in so far as it relates to the areas to be used for evaporation ponds, the tailings dump and the treatment plant and facilities pertaining thereto" (39).
Within six months, the State Mines Minister, Ivan Gibbs, was blatantly seeking to overturn the Warden's decision. After Minatome drubbed together some "new studies", the Minister felt able to declare that Minatome need not re-apply for a lease, and their work would be assessed within the Mines department itself (41): "the best thing to do with uranium is to mine it and get the best price we can for it", said Gibbs. By this time, another scandal was in the news. The national newsmagazine, National Times, revealed that Minatome had destroyed several vital Aboriginal sites "in the past couple of months" - including one possibly some 4000 years old, "considered to be one of the most significant in North Queensland". This site was bulldozed by the company to make way for an experimental evaporation pond. Another Aboriginal quarry site "considered to be unique in Australia" was also under threat by planned high-tension power lines and water pipes, while a sacred pool was threatened by nearby drilling. To cap it all, a confidential document obtained by the National Times revealed that Minatome had been aware of these Aboriginal sites since 1978 and was advised in an archaeological impact statement that they should be protected (42).
Early the next year, Minatome flew out 36 tonnes of uranium ore from Ben Lomond to Noumea in New Caledonia, then on to France for testing (43). The flight was organised to evade union bans at Townsville, as well as adverse publicity (44).
A few months later, the World Bike Ride - antinuclear activists who had set out from Melbourne in March - set up an "Atom-Free" embassy at the mine site itself (45).
Then, in mid-1983, the federal Australian government banned all uranium exports to France, in retaliation for France's continued nuclear testing in the Pacific. In response, the company reportedly filled in the tailings dam and development work came to a halt (46).
At the end of the year, the company finally published the environmental impact statement - a few days after the ALP government announced a ban on all new uranium mines, apart from Roxby Downs (see WMC). Minatome claimed that adverse effects on the environment from the Ben Lomond mine would be very small, and "there will be no significant radiological effects" (47). It also stated that exports of uranium from the mine would "satisfy" Australia's export requirements (big deal!) and that Minatome would form a JV with an Australian company to guarantee 75% local equity in the uranium venture. The project could begin within two years and production start by 1988 (47).
At the beginning of 1984, the company announced that developing Ben Lomond would cost US$100 million, and that - though the mine was not likely to receive federal government approval - the project would still proceed. Later estimates were that the mine would produce about 500 tonnes/year uranium metal and slightly lower tonnages of molybdenum over a period of 10 years, with an average grading of 2kg/tonne (48).
Early in 1986 it was reported in the Australian Senate that the uranium ore stockpiled at Ben Lomond had been virtually abandoned, with a minimum of security precautions (49).
Since aquiring the Ben Lomond deposit in July 1997, Anaconda Uranium Corp. have been preparing a new feasibility study of the deposit and they are working on updated environmental studies. In March 1998, they announced that work had begun on the new feasibility study, with the deposit to developed in conjunction with the Maureen deposit.
With the Queensland election in mid 1998, Labour announced that they would stop the mine if elected to power 1, 2. That's a damn good reason to vote Labour !!!!
And people did vote Labour (just enough....), and now Queensland has a Beattie Labour government. They announced their minerals and energy policy, stating that 3 :
"Labor will not grant a mining lease for the purposes of mining uranium in Queensland. Nor will it permit the treatment or processing of uranium in the state."Anaconda were yet to issue a press release or respond in public at this time.
By September 1998, Anaconda had announced plans for a new uranium project in Portugal (the NISA Project, in joint venture with the Portugese government), and said it had not yet made final payment for the Ben Lomond deposit, due July 10, 1998. It was attempting to renegotiate the time schedules, but would not expand further.
However, in late October 1998, they finally announced that they have abandoned all plans to develop the Ben Lomond and Maureen uranium deposits4. Interestingly though, the project had been written off on August 31, 1998 - only two months after the election of the Beattie Labour government. It is unknown if Anaconda completed their new feasibility study of the deposits. Presumably Cogema (Australia) will retain ownership of the Ben Lomond (and Maureen) deposit.
WOOHOO!
Image from Anaconda Uranium Ltd.
Last Updated - November 4, 1998.
1 - ABC WebNews May 27 - Townsville: Parties bicker over uranium deposit.
2 - ABC WebNews May 26 - N Qld: No uranium mining under Labor.
3 - UIC Weekly News July 17, 1998.
4 - Anaconda Press Release, October 30, 1998.
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