Bowdens Silver

Partial collapse of a tailings dam at Newcrest's Cadia Mine near Orange, NSW, on 9 March 2018.

To Whom it may concern
I am a farmer that has lived in and around Mudgee for the majority of my life. I currently live in Mudgee and travel out to our on the Hayes Gap Road every day. I love riding horses, working dogs and growing healthy clean high-quality beef and wool for the population to consume. I am not one to object to all mines and I am not anti-development because I love a strong community with a low unemployment rate but I do object to Bowdens Silver Mine. If this mine goes ahead its going to put the local and wider community at great health and economic risk. These being lead dust, tourism down turn, the tailings dam, the pipeline and the water consumption.

The lead dust is defiantly a concern to me but I feel it should be a concern to the wider community. I do understand that lead is a valued material and it needs to be mined but it has it risks in a highly populated area. The boarder of the mine is only 2 km from the Lue school. The international guide lines is 5km and from the test of lead travelling out of the Broken Hill mine is quite concerning and taking to account that kids absorbed as much as 50% of the lead that they come into contact with. It has also been said that there is no safe level of lead to be consumed. This is a great concern to me and my family and I feel it should be concerning for any family in the Mudgee region. I say this because the trucks fill with lead are going to be driving through Mudgee, Wellington and over to Parks. Even if the tucks are sealed which I’m sure will be a requirement. I’m concerned about the dust that lands on the trucks while being loaded at the mine and then blown off on the commute to Parkes. Is every truck going to be washed of lead before it leaves the mine and past my home?

The most concerning factor to me is the water. Knowing first-hand how scarce it became during the most recent drought. Farmers within the region were selling their stock because they had run out of water. Bowden’s Silver projected that they will use 2050 mega litres year and pump 780 litres of that is going to come from the Lawson creek valley. A fully grown lactating cow can drink up to 120 litres on a hot summer’s day. If Bowden’s silver were watering cattle with all at water, they would be able to water 46666 lactating cows in total in the middle of summer. The water pulled from the Lawson creek valley would water 17808 lactating cows alone. To put that into perspective the avg cattle herd size in Australia is 276. Bowden’s will use enough water to water 169 avg size cattle farms. 17% of the water is going to come from Ulan mine which will be piped to Lue. I’m strongly opposed to this pipeline because it is going to run through our family farm. This water that is projected to run through the pipeline has already been put through to processing system at Ulan which makes it very dirty and solicit. This makes it a risk for us to burden on top of which having a pipeline is going to devalue our farm with no compensation.

Mudgee at the moment is quite a tourist hot spot and it getting promoted at clean and green. If the tailings dam gets put in there is a very high risk that it is going to leak. There has been no successful tailing dam made at this scale. If it leaks it will run directly into the Lawson creek and down to Mudgee. One of the chemicals that is going to be stored in the tailings dam is cyanide. I feel that it’s a pretty big risk for my home town. If the dam is to fail or it starts to get known that there is a dam full of cyanide up stream of Mudgee it will has great effect on the local tourism greatly. Which will be mostly small businesses.

In summary Bowden’s silver are wanting to mine Lue for a short 16 years which is a very short term gain with an extremely high risk for the community which I do not feel comfortable with because I don’t think it is the right thing for our community.
Regards
Nick White

The Bowdens lead silver, lead and zinc mine poses huge humanitarian and ecological risks to the near and far Lue community and communities downstream from the proposed site. There are risks of ecological upset, contamination of waterways and environment from lead exposure and precursor chemicals such as cyanide and the severe social impacts of having a large mining and processing facility in very close proximity to the township of Lue.

Ecological risks associated with the proposed mine include:

Affects to groundwater dependent ecosystems in the vicinity of the mine site where diverted flows will reduce groundwater recharge thereby impacting the biodiversity and survival of the groundwater dependent ecosystems.
Diversion in groundwater flows results in reduced groundwater availability for downstream users, additionally the qatar quality for downstream users is likely to be of a diminished quality
The vulnerable Murray Cod, and endangered Southern Spotted Purple Gudgoen may be present at the site, changes to the integrity and resilience of the biophysical and hydrological environments is likely to result in adverse impacts and consequently the potential loss of these species
Flooding in the area may lead to the displacement of contaminated tailings water to be released downstream.


There is predicted to be significant baseflow reduction to Hawkins and Lawsons Creek which is likely to impact on the overall ecology of the creek, noting that many of the lower order tributaries are ephemeral and reliant on those baseflows.
The destruction of around 284ha of endangered vegetation communities. 158ha of Blakely’s Red Gum grassy woodland, 114ha of rough barked apple/red gum/yellow box woods on flats and 12 ha of white box woodland.
Destruction of 8ha of regent honeyeater habitat on site.
It appears there may be non compliances with the NRAR riparian policy in regards to stream order and associated riparian width (need to check this)

Health impacts of exposure to lead dust and effects to groundwater include

Exposure to high levels of lead may cause anemia, weakness, and kidney and brain damage. Very high lead exposure can cause death.
Lead can cross the placental barrier, which means pregnant women who are exposed to lead also expose their unborn child. Lead can damage a developing baby’s nervous system. Even low-level lead exposures in developing babies have been found to affect behavior and intelligence. Lead exposure can cause miscarriage, stillbirths, and infertility (in both men and women).
Generally, lead affects children more than it does adults. Children tend to show signs of severe lead toxicity at lower levels than adults. Lead poisoning has occurred in children whose parent(s) accidentally brought home lead dust on their clothing. Neurological effects and mental retardation have also occurred in children whose parent(s) may have job-related lead exposure.
Throughout history we have seen repeated examples of communities destroyed by lead contamination and the severe adverse health effects is poses to human life, in particular children.


Social impacts to the township of Lue and surrounding communities include:

Mining can impact local communities both positively and negatively. While positive impacts such as employment and community development projects are important, they do not off-set the potential negatives.
Forcing them from their homes and land through excessive noise, dust and increased traffic to the area.
If groundwater is contaminated it can prevent residents from accessing clean water.
Impacting on their health and livelihoods
Can cause divisions in communities over who benefits from the mine and who doesn’t
Changing the social dynamics of a community
Exposing them to harassment by mine or government security
Investigation shows that the impacts of mining are not gender neutral. Women often experience the negative impacts of mining more than men, and rarely receive the benefits that men do.
A transient male work force can bring increased alcohol, sex workers and violence into a community, which can affect women’s safety

Thank you for the opportunity to offer a submission.
I lived in Lue until a few years ago. This project has been hanging over the heads of locals for many years now and we were active in objecting to it from the start. My main concerns are:
1. water sourcing - the proposed water pipeline, and sourcing locally will cause disturbance to many
2. water polluting - it is highly likely that this mine will pollute local water sources and therefore impact both wildlife and farmers - stock and crops. In our changing climate while there are many dry periods, when it rains, it floods and I have already seen flooding on Bowdens. Mitigation of spillage would be impossible.
3. lead pollution - we all know how detrimental to health lead is, and far more lead will be extracted than silver. This mine is too close to the village including school. It is also surrounded by farmers and again, their stock in particular, could also be contaminated.
4. the road between Mudgee and Rylstone is narrow in many places. The truck volume levels are likely to make this a very dangerous road.
5. the EIS seems insufficient on many levels including the lack of credible population counting of species, including koalas; lack of consideration of impact on Indigenous sites
I urge the Department of Planning to reject this project.
Thank you for your consideration.