Bowdens Silver

The silver mine is important for resources for modern technology. The correct assessments have been undertaken and the government should be showing how the biodiversity offsets are being bought and sold on the market. The government should be transparent in where these offsets are going, the development application has followed due process. The mine will be positive for the local and wider community economies and good job creating project after Covid-19 pandemic.
This mine is owned by an Australian company which during these tough times should be supported.

Please find my submission attached.

I have a major concern with the movement of the powerline for the mine. It will ruin the picturesque landscape that makes Lue an amazing place to live. My home should not be greatly impacted for the benefit of someone else.

I appreciate the opportunity to express my concerns with this project as whole and certainly to moving the 500kv line into the visual line of the village of Lue.
We live 8kms from the mine pit and have the unfortunate experience of having 13 power towers run through our property for about the last 30 years. These towers just crackle above us when moving stock beneath them so have concerns re health effects and keep as clear as possible from them. They run across our property on the western side exactly where we try to enjoy the sunsets. No photo of a sunset at home is without one of these towers front and center. Lue Village will have these more prominently gracing the eastern skyline line, having the same visual effect for Lue residents at sunrise. These towers will then remain on this ridgeline into perpetuity long after the life of the mine possibly effecting house/farm prices well into the future.
We look forward to DPIE coming to meet residents of Lue and experiencing the beauty and tranquility of this rural village and surrounds and all the farms and businesses that will be directly affected by this proposed lead/mineral mine during the mine life and well beyond.

I have been alerted by relatives of the impending imposition of a silver mine on the Lue local area. My family have farmed in the area for more than 40 years and in that time I have enjoyed the tranquillity and quieter lifestyle of the area. Early in their residency they were subjected to the installation of power towers across their land. This involved land clearing and heavy vehicle movements within their property, unknown workers having access throughout their property and an end result of a man-made eyesore to the landscape. Now, as part of this mine plan, these towers would be shifted to a more prominent position on the landscape, again bringing all the problems and inconvenience of the past with absolutely no gain.
The area has also just come out of a long drought in which creeks stopped running and ground water was under threat. The mine intends to draw water from Ulan and from Lawson creek, a creek that is not permanent, as displayed in the recent drought. Food security into the future is a huge issue for Australia and diverting water from food production to a mine is at least folly and at most criminal.
Light glow is another issue that appears to not be a problem according to studies presented as part of this project. Only observatories are being considered as being impacted by light glow and distances are given for how far the mine is from each of them. However, looking at the night sky without the usual light pollution of towns and cities is one of the joys of visiting my family farm. The mine's night lighting will diminish our enjoyment of the night sky and that of all of the residents close to the operation, not to mention the thousands of tourists who visit the area and are amazed at how clear the Milky Way is when you have no light pollution.
Heavy vehicles on local roads is another issue that has been dealt with in the EIS. It appears that after the initial construction phase, heavy vehicles will not be travelling through Lue village. That is written as a positive for the people of Lue. However, this is only a short stretch of the road, the only road that local people have to access facilities in Mudgee, the nearest large town. The road is single lane each way and has a number of winding sections. Has the mine considered the impact of local cars and heavy vehicles sharing this road day and night? The road is currently picturesque and relatively quiet but with the addition of heavy vehicles it will become an extremely dangerous route. The mine's answer to this will probably be to widen the road, further degradation of the landscape and its current beauty.
Rylstone and Lue have battled to retain residents and keep their economy going. In recent years this has involved catering to increasing numbers of tourists. Part of the area's attraction is the natural landscape, lack of noise and less traffic. Residents have developed businesses and accommodation, providing many jobs within the region. The mine claims it will provide jobs during construction and operation but as evidenced in existing mining communities, these are not always filled by local people. Orange in particular has seen increased rents and housing prices due to mining operations. The mine has an overall life of 23 years. What then? After the landscape has been destroyed and the housing market distorted, what will remain of Lue and the surrounding areas. As with other mining regions, at the end of their mining life, the housing market will likely collapse, the landscape will be permanently scarred and the company will plant some trees and call it a regenerated.
I object strongly to a project that will have a huge destructive impact on a community for such a short time. Short term gain for Bowdens and long term pain for the region and its people.

RESPONSE TO SVL AMENDMENT
(1) My first objection to the SVL amendment to the Bowdens Project is to strongly and forcefully point out that proposing the Powerline relocation amendment is an insult to the Lue community and the 373 persons who submitted objections to the EIS which was placed on display for public comment in 2020.
Unless the proponent is seriously incompetent and woefully unprepared, it would have been clear that a substantial realignment of the existing powerline was necessary and full details should have been included in the 2020 EIS so that the full extent of the footprint of the proposed project was clear to all who responded to the EIS.
The proponent SVL has said many times that the development proposal as submitted in the EIS is a relatively small project (much smaller than the previous proponent KCN’s plan) and, by inference, that it would have minimal impact on the Lue area. By not including the full details of the size of the Powerline relocation in the original EIS, the proponent has hidden from scrutiny a major infrastructure undertaking directly linked to the proposed project.
(2) My second objection is to state that SVL failed to include full details of three major infrastructure programs in the EIS submitted in 2020, and by doing so has hidden from public scrutiny the real size and impact of the proposed project. The three projects are-
(i)The relocation of the Powerline. This will include clearing a 70m wide strip of land running for over 3 kilometres
(ii) The proposed water pipeline from the Ulan area to the Bowdens site. The length of the proposed pipeline is approximately 70 kilometres.
(iii) A new 66 kv powerline from the Bylong Valley Way to the Bowdens site. This powerline would run for up to 20 kms through Breakfast Creek, Camboon and Pyangle.
Respondents to the EIS as it was displayed in 2020 were denied the opportunity to assess the proposed project with full knowledge of all works associated with the proposed project.
(3) There are very substantial infrastructure and rehabilitation costs associated with the proposed project-
* Moving 3 kms of large transmission towers,
*running about 70kms of pipeline to transport so called “waste” water from Ulan via road verges and private properties,
*running about 20 km of 66 kv powerline from Bylong Valley Way to Bowdens,
* the parting gift to the Lue community of a large void and TSF, both containing contaminated water which will be left for future generations of taxpayers to manage.
The proponent SVL has made much of what they call “overwhelming support” for the proposed project. That SVL has managed to overwhelm the residents and rural neighbours of a small rural village does the proponent no credit and demonstrates the David vs Goliath nature of such proposals. The system really is broken when significant parts of that “overwhelming” support were coordinated and gathered in that near neighbour state of WA.
Support from sporting and community groups in Mudgee and the Kandos Rylstone area was in response to so called sponsorship. A small rural community does not have the means to undertake a similar program of providing financial inducements to community groups to support the “No” case.
The proponent SVL must be directed to submit a new EIS, one which encompasses the proposed project in its entirety, so that respondents are able to assess its full footprint and impacts. Amendments such as this are deceitful and designed to obscure the true scale of the proposal.

As a retired school principal who has educated many students and teachers about the fragile Murray Darling Basin area that stretches across, and impacts, 5 Australian states and territories (Queensland, NSW, Victoria, ACT and SA), I would like to strongly suggest that this mine does not go ahead so that the people of the area - and the already endangered flora and fauna - are not compromised further.
We New South Welshmen (and Australians) have an obligation to ensure that our children and their children have a positive future in a land that is managed skilfully, bearing in mind that we have low rainfall and are the driest continent on Earth. I cannot support, and therefore strongly object to, the Bowden Silver Mine proposal. It must NOT go ahead.

I wish to submit my objection to the amendment to the EIS for the Bowdens Silver Project/Lue Lead Mine.
Realignment of the Transgrid 500kv powerline was not included in the original EIS, this indicates a poor approach to planning. Surely it should have been included in the initial application? Transgrid reports there are no issues ‘from an engineering perspective’; however the realignment will have potential biodiversity, cultural heritage and visual impacts which should have been address in the original EIS.
Additionally, Lawson Creek and its tributaries are likely to be negatively impacted by any failure of the tailings dam, as well as the mine’s proximity to watercourses. This risks not only the immediate creek environment but has potential for downstream impacts on the Cudgegong River, Mudgee water supply and Burrendong Dam.
Air and water pollution are not adequately assessed or mitigated in the proposal.
I note that the mine is promoted as a silver mine, but the production of lead will exceed that of silver. The project requires scrutiny on the basis of current climate modelling, downstream impacts on water courses and environmental and social impact on the immediate Lue area.

Please find attached.

Dubbo Environment Group consists of 20 members and 400 newsletter and Facebook post followers from the central west of NSW. Our group has worked hard to highlight the need for remediation of our degraded rivers which, as reported in the 2020 ICAC findings, are suffering from over- extraction due to unprecedented priority given to irrigaters.
Our group has also voiced their concerns for the poorly regulated processes of the coal seam gas industry, particularly in the Pilliga Forest, where exploration is allowed to proceed without adequate plans for removing fracking salt residue and without proper monitoring of evaporation ponds or methane leakage. Having seen the poor environmental controls enforced in the Hunter, in Gloucester, Peak Hill and in Mudgee, our group is very concerned that the tailings dam for Bowdens Silver is too close to Lawson Creek. We are concerned that this dam will not withstand an intense flood event. Dam failure will pollute key inflows to the Cudgegong River, Mudgee water supply and Burrendong Dam. These waters eventually should flow through to the Murray Darling Basin where the problems of salt and algae need to be regularly flushed out with good quality water.
We believe that the world is at a tipping point in regard to the avoidance of catastrophic Climate Change consequences. The Lue Silver mine has not been assessed using new climate modelling for the Macquarie Region developed by the NSW Government. There will be no water available to suppress lead dust in a major intense drought, as experienced in 2018-2019 in the region.
We have been told by scientists from The Climate Council that world emissions need to reach net zero by 2040 if we are to maintain the average temperature increase to below a 1.5 degrees C. Destruction of any of the environmental natural habitat in the Lue area, the atmospheric pollution produced and the increased degradation of our water courses, will amount to a debit in terms of emissions reduction.
Our group is against the establishment of the Lue silver mine.

I have grown up and spent my adult life in the north west and central west of NSW. I have been a member of Dubbo Knitting Nannas Against CSG and Healthy Rivers Dubbo. I am a member of Dubbo Field Naturalists and a founding member of Dubbo Environment Group.
It is with despair that I have lived to witness my own generational poor farming practices and also the continued destruction of our land, forests ad water through mining practices. Remediation claims have not been followed through. Often mining companies have walked away from commitments to provide environmental offsets and restitution for the damage they have caused. I have no confidence that the Lue Silver mine will be kept accountable by any government agencies when the history of these agencies has been merely to comply to such corporations and help them to progress in spite of the environment. I have read John Watts' book, "The Town that Said No!"
So far, there has been a poor planning process around this project which has been confusing to the community. Why was the realignment of the Transgrid 500kv power line not included under the Part 4 application in the first place? The EIS, as placed on public exhibition in June – July 2020 was deficient. Why was there an amendment to the project before the release of the assessment report by Department of Planning, Industry and Environment ? I do not feel assured that due process has been managed well.
Rerouting the power line to a hilltop is concerning. I imagine that large swathes of vegetation will have to be cleared. This to me opens up the possibility of flora and fauna destruction in a time when Australian extinction rates are near the highest in the world. It also speaks to the possibility of erosion of soils when a hilltop is cleared. These issues have not been properly addressed.
Apparently the mining project will produce a much higher quantity of of lead than silver. We need a more stringent assessment and mitigation of air and water pollution for this scenario.
I assert that this silver mine at Lue should not proceed.

Bowden Silver Project Objection

I am Marie Sitter I live in Blaxland and have been a regular visitor to the township of Lue. I am horried to hear that there is to be a silver mine so close to the township.
My objections are based on extra trucks on the road, air pollution, visual pollution, destruction of local tourism, an enormous hole that will be left after mining is finished.
This silver mine is just not appropriate.
Yours in hope
Marie Sitter
[email protected]

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