The Environment Centre of the NT (ECNT) says the government’s handling of MRM/Xstrata’s revised plan to divert the McArthur River and mine the river bed is a crucial test case for the protection of the NT’s relatively pristine rivers and all the values and amenity they provide to the whole community.

ECNT Coordinator Peter Robertson said the government should make it clear that while it supports mining, it will not allow our rivers to be treated as inconvenient drains that can be shunted around and dug up at the whim of mining companies.

“Although the company says it has addressed the major environmental concerns raised in the earlier assessment, the changes it is proposing do not in fact change the mine’s fundamental flaws.

“MRM has been mining underground in that area for ten years and no doubt made a lot of money – even though the mine itself, astonishingly, has never recorded a profit and hence never paid mineral royalties to the NT government!

“But diverting the river and mining the river bed – in a flood plain – exacerbates the already serious inherent problems with mining in tropical environments.

“Increased levels and long term risks of erosion, sedimentation, heavy metals pollution and acid mine drainage would be a long term cost to the wider community.

“We must remember that the company still plans to leave the massive pit as an open void in the river bed after it finishes mining.

“Those long term environmental, social, cultural and economic risks and costs have not been properly documented or addressed by either the company or the government, and hence no claims can be made that it is in the economic interest of the NT to approve the mine.”