Palerang Council held an extraordinary meeting last night to consider its position on Unity Mining’s proposed changes to the Dargues Gold Mine at Majors Creek.
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The meeting came upon receipt of a draft review of Unity’s environmental assessment of the changes, jointly-funded by Palerang and Eurobodalla councils.
In its meeting agenda, it was recommended Palerang council write to the Premier, all relevant Ministers and local members “expressing the community’s opposition to any variation to the Dargues Gold Mine approval that unacceptably increases environmental and community risk”.
The agenda states the risk to the environment and the community would be greater if Unity introduced carbon-in-leach processing using cyanide at the site.
“While it can be argued that the destruction of cyanide post-processing, and the breakdown of cyanide in sunlight, minimises the risk of environmental damage, it is unarguable that the risk of such damage would be greater following the introduction of carbon-in-leach processing,” the report states.
“While cyanide represents a risk, perhaps the greater long-term risk is the residual heavy metals remaining on site in the expanded tailings dam.
“While cyanide may break down over time, these heavy metals do not.”
The meeting’s outcome was unknown by the time of print.
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