McPhillamys Gold Project

I object to this proposed mine for the following reasons:
• The vast majority of Australia is in the grip of drought, claimed by some to be the most severe and widespread in recorded history. Most expert opinion is that, due to the now unavoidable climate change caused by global warming, such droughts are going to become the new normal. This will result in reduced rainfall, increased evaporation, and consequent scarcity of water for all purposes, including farming, on which we all depend for food production. Yet this project is seriously proposing to construct a tailings dam, full of potentially toxic sludge, on top of the headwaters of one of the few rivers in the country still in reasonable condition.

• Tailings dams have been known to fail, with catastrophic consequences. Destroying this agricultural area for a 15 year project to extract gold at a concentration of perhaps 1.05gm/tonne, producing 60m+ tonnes of waste, and leaving a destroyed landscape and toxic legacy that will last forever just cannot be justified to produce a metal that will likely end up as jewellery, or be locked away as bullion. No doubt the financiers and engineers who are promoting and designing this project are highly skilled, but the risks posed by this project are way out of proportion with the benefit to be gained for the country as a whole.


• Some towns in NSW are about to run out of water. It is morally problematic, to say the least, that water has been turned into a commodity in this country rather than an essential resource to which everybody has a right and human and animal interests are considered higher than the profits of organisations.
• The use of cyanide to process the gold from ore and then pumped into the tailings dam. Cyanide has been banned in nine countries, Korea, Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Germany and Hungary and some US states and poses a dangerous and toxic threat to the water and land in the region.
• Inevitable contamination of the Belubula and Lachlan Rivers, due to seepage through groundwater flows from the tailings dam
• Traffic problems and caused by the continuous stream of heavy vehicles, and light vehicles at shift changes
• The blot on the landscape caused by the “amenity bunds” and dust
• Loss of natural land and environment for wildlife, and the impact of toxicity on surrounding wildlife
• Noise, dust, vibrations, particulate pollution from diesel fumes, light pollution 7 days a week and 24 hours a day
• The noise, vibrations and risks posed by regular explosions permitted for 12 hours a day. This will impact livestock and domestic animals on neighbouring properties and could damage heritage buildings
• Permanent degradation of prime agricultural land and scenery
• Loss of trees including high altitude yellow box that may be 200 years old
• Impact on bee population due to loss of ground flora and contaminated water
• Loss of the forest where the mine is proposed that is considered an ecologically endangered community as defined by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
• The high probability that the developer will not be willing or able to rehabilitate the site when the mine eventually becomes unviable, as has happened so many times in the history of mining
• The whole project proposes less than 1000 short terms jobs. Other industries in this area, with support a more diversified and resilient economy including tourism, renewables and sustainable agriculture

As a potential future resident of the area impacted by the mine, I am deeply concerned about the proposed project, and wish to state my objection. My colleague has accurately and succinctly summarised my concerns to the project with the points listed below:

• The vast majority of Australia is in the grip of drought, claimed by some to be the most severe and widespread in recorded history. Most expert opinion is that, due to the now unavoidable climate change caused by global warming, such droughts are going to become the new normal. This will result in reduced rainfall, increased evaporation, and consequent scarcity of water for all purposes, including farming, on which we all depend for food production. Yet this project is seriously proposing to construct a tailings dam, full of potentially toxic sludge, on top of the headwaters of one of the few rivers in the country still in reasonable condition.

• Tailings dams have been known to fail, with catastrophic consequences. Destroying this agricultural area for a 15 year project to extract gold at a concentration of perhaps 1.05gm/tonne, producing 60m+ tonnes of waste, and leaving a destroyed landscape and toxic legacy that will last forever just cannot be justified to produce a metal that will likely end up as jewellery, or be locked away as bullion. No doubt the financiers and engineers who are promoting and designing this project are highly skilled, but the risks posed by this project are way out of proportion with the benefit to be gained for the country as a whole.


• Some towns in NSW are about to run out of water. It is morally problematic, to say the least, that water has been turned into a commodity in this country rather than an essential resource to which everybody has a right and human and animal interests are considered higher than the profits of organisations.
• The use of cyanide to process the gold from ore and then pumped into the tailings dam. Cyanide has been banned in nine countries, Korea, Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Germany and Hungary and some US states and poses a dangerous and toxic threat to the water and land in the region.
• Inevitable contamination of the Belubula and Lachlan Rivers, due to seepage through groundwater flows from the tailings dam
• Traffic problems and caused by the continuous stream of heavy vehicles, and light vehicles at shift changes
• The blot on the landscape caused by the “amenity bunds” and dust
• Loss of natural land and environment for wildlife, and the impact of toxicity on surrounding wildlife
• Noise, dust, vibrations, particulate pollution from diesel fumes, light pollution 7 days a week and 24 hours a day
• The noise, vibrations and risks posed by regular explosions permitted for 12 hours a day. This will impact livestock and domestic animals on neighbouring properties and could damage heritage buildings
• Permanent degradation of prime agricultural land and scenery
• Loss of trees including high altitude yellow box that may be 200 years old
• Impact on bee population due to loss of ground flora and contaminated water
• Loss of the forest where the mine is proposed that is considered an ecologically endangered community as defined by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
• The high probability that the developer will not be willing or able to rehabilitate the site when the mine eventually becomes unviable, as has happened so many times in the history of mining
• The whole project proposes less than 1000 short terms jobs. Other industries in this area, with support a more diversified and resilient economy including tourism, renewables and sustainable agriculture offer far more employment.

I am writing to express my deep displeasure with the possibility of this gold mine being constructed on Kings Plains. I grew up very close to the proposed site of this mine and 642 acre tailings dam. My parents still live there, though they have existed with this hanging over their head, knowing that this mine will significantly decrease their quality of living, and leave them with a beautiful property they have built up and maintained, that will now be of little value to sell. My father, who recently became a cancer survivor, is still living with an undiagnosed autoimmune condition that effects his breathing, among other things. How can this enormous project possibly be guaranteed against decreasing the air quality when they live so close? The noise and air pollution will also be a significant problem to the local wildlife that live in the area. In my 25 years living on Pounds Lane, I have seen countless bird species, the bee boxes placed periodically on our property, and the koalas passing in the lane as well as in the bush to the North West (even closer to the proposed mine than our house).

This effects my parents, and by extension my family, and my brother and sister’s families who live in nearby Bathurst and often visit to expose their young children to this beautiful land and animals. However, this project also poses a terminal threat to the township of Blayney, and all of the properties that sit nearby the Belubula River. There is simply NO guarantee that can be given that the toxic water this mine will produce can be kept from seeping into this river and infecting the entire landscape it passes through. Surely the failure of Regis to contain water within its dam walls in the past is a red flag? What will we be left with? I have seen the miraculously green and vegetated pile of rubble that will be sitting on the skyline after only 4 years. This will actually result in locals fearing rain! Breaking the drought would lead to the leftover waste seeping into the water table.

Please use your common, humane sense and deny the continuation of this project.

Fantastic economic, employment and local growth driver for blayney shire, surrounding villages and the central west.

Important to continue to develop local economy struggling under current climate pressures through diversity.

Great opportunity for investment, infrastructure development, VPA inputs into local communities and the LGA.

Wet tailings dam is a local concern due to topography and local hydrology, catchment and elevation. The TSF needs to be designed, implemented and managed to a standard that exceeds industry standards beyond nominal contingencies.

Traffic management also needs to be managed in construction and operation. This is regarding the district, primarily at pinch points intersections Blayney main st, Millthorpe parkst and victoria st, vittoria road guyong, mid western hwy site access.

The company, project and site needs to build trust, confidence and social licence further prior and during the project lifetime. Need to engage at ground level, be part of community not a seagull seen as a foreign company.

Opportunity to provide public viewing of the site from various vantage points within the operational area. Site access, proximity to towns and villages, major highway thoroughfare and site topography lends itself to allow the establishment of a and varying viewing areas over lif er of mine. This can and should be included from day -100 in project scope. Herein lies part of the pathway to building social licence and project acceptance. Transparency is thousands of times more powerful than a independent consultant report commissioned by the proponent.

Proud to be living in a region that is lucky enough to have another productive gold mine in nsw and the central west.

I object to this proposed mine for the following reasons:
• The vast majority of Australia is in the grip of drought, claimed by some to be the most severe and widespread in recorded history. Most expert opinion is that, due to the now unavoidable climate change caused by global warming, such droughts are going to become the new normal. This will result in reduced rainfall, increased evaporation, and consequent scarcity of water for all purposes, including farming, on which we all depend for food production. Yet this project is seriously proposing to construct a tailings dam, full of potentially toxic sludge, on top of the headwaters of one of the few rivers in the country still in reasonable condition.

• Tailings dams have been known to fail, with catastrophic consequences. Destroying this agricultural area for a 15 year project to extract gold at a concentration of perhaps 1.05gm/tonne, producing 60m+ tonnes of waste, and leaving a destroyed landscape and toxic legacy that will last forever just cannot be justified to produce a metal that will likely end up as jewellery, or be locked away as bullion. No doubt the financiers and engineers who are promoting and designing this project are highly skilled, but the risks posed by this project are way out of proportion with the benefit to be gained for the country as a whole.


• Some towns in NSW are about to run out of water. It is morally problematic, to say the least, that water has been turned into a commodity in this country rather than an essential resource to which everybody has a right and human and animal interests are considered higher than the profits of organisations.
• The use of cyanide to process the gold from ore and then pumped into the tailings dam. Cyanide has been banned in nine countries, Korea, Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Germany and Hungary and some US states and poses a dangerous and toxic threat to the water and land in the region.
• Inevitable contamination of the Belubula and Lachlan Rivers, due to seepage through groundwater flows from the tailings dam
• Traffic problems and caused by the continuous stream of heavy vehicles, and light vehicles at shift changes
• The blot on the landscape caused by the “amenity bunds” and dust
• Loss of natural land and environment for wildlife, and the impact of toxicity on surrounding wildlife
• Noise, dust, vibrations, particulate pollution from diesel fumes, light pollution 7 days a week and 24 hours a day
• The noise, vibrations and risks posed by regular explosions permitted for 12 hours a day. This will impact livestock and domestic animals on neighbouring properties and could damage heritage buildings
• Permanent degradation of prime agricultural land and scenery
• Loss of trees including high altitude yellow box that may be 200 years old
• Impact on bee population due to loss of ground flora and contaminated water
• Loss of the forest where the mine is proposed that is considered an ecologically endangered community as defined by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
• The high probability that the developer will not be willing or able to rehabilitate the site when the mine eventually becomes unviable, as has happened so many times in the history of mining
• The whole project proposes less than 1000 short terms jobs. Other industries in this area, with support a more diversified and resilient economy including tourism, renewables and sustainable agriculture offer far more employment.

I object to this proposed mine for the following reasons:
I want Australia to be a country where there is land to grow food and land to live on without fear of contamination. I was thrilled that my daughter, husband and grandchildren decided to live in the Central West. I am devastated that they now face the possibility of this mine and the pollution it will cause. My major objections to this proposal are as follows...
• The vast majority of Australia is in the grip of drought, claimed by some to be the most severe and widespread in recorded history. Most expert opinion is that, due to the now unavoidable climate change caused by global warming, such droughts are going to become the new normal. This will result in reduced rainfall, increased evaporation, and consequent scarcity of water for all purposes, including farming, on which we all depend for food production. Yet this project is seriously proposing to construct a tailings dam, full of potentially toxic sludge, on top of the headwaters of one of the few rivers in the country still in reasonable condition

• Tailings dams have been known to fail, with catastrophic consequences. Destroying this agricultural area for a 10 - 15 year project to extract gold at a concentration of perhaps 1.05gm/tonne, producing 60m+ tonnes of waste, and leaving a destroyed landscape and toxic legacy that will last forever just cannot be justified to produce a metal that will likely end up as jewellery, or be locked away as bullion. No doubt the financiers and engineers who are promoting and designing this project are highly skilled, but the risks posed by this project are way out of proportion with the benefit to be gained for the country as a whole

• The use of cyanide to process the gold from ore and then pumped into the tailings dam. The use of cyanide for this purpose has been banned in nine countries (Korea, Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, the Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Germany and Hungary) and some US states, and poses a dangerous and toxic threat to the water and land in the region
• The inevitable contamination of the Belubula and Lachlan Rivers, due to seepage though groundwater flows from the tailings dam
• Traffic problems and caused by the continuous stream of heavy vehicles, and light vehicles at shift changes
• The blot on the landscape caused by the “amenity bunds” and dust
• Loss of natural land and environment for wildlife, and the impact of toxicity on surrounding wildlife
• Noise, dust, vibrations, particulate pollution from diesel fumes, light pollution 7 days a week and 24 hours a day
• The noise, vibrations and risks posed by regular explosions permitted for 12 hours a day. This will impact live stock and dometic animals on neighbouring properties and could damage heritage buildings
• Permanent degradation of prime agricultural land and scenery
• Loss of trees including high altitude yellow box that may be 200 years old
• Impact on bee population due to loss of ground flora and contaminated water
• Loss of the forest where the mine is proposed that is considered an ecologically endangered community as defined by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage
• The high probability that the developer will not be willing or able to rehabilitate the site when the mine eventually becomes unviable, as has happened so many times in the history of mining
• The whole project proposes less than 1000 short terms jobs. Other industries in this area, with support a more diversified and resilient economy including tourism, renewables and sustainable agriculture offer far more employment.

I urge you to consider the above and reject this project in its entirety.
Yours sincerely
Anne Youll

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Please find attached a brief submission objecting to this project.

I am "extremely concerned" about the "environmental potential pollution" repercussions involved in a project such as this both now & in the future.

I object to the McPhillamys Gold Project.
The following points are my reasons for objecting the Project:
-The construction of a tailings dam, on the springs for the strong flowing Belubula River that runs through the property I live on with my parents, will contaminate the water of the river and will not be able to be used for stock drinking water.
-When the river becomes contaminated, it will contaminate Carcoar Dam, which is a hot spot for water sports which I do on a regular basis in the summer with my family and friends. People, and myself, will not be able to water ski, wakeboard and other water sports because the water will be unsafe to enter because of the chemicals that have leached from the tailings dam.
-If Carcoar Dam is contaminated, another popular sport, fishing, will not be able to happen because the fish will be killed by the chemicals.
-I have a huge interest in agriculture which raises another issue. The irrigators and farmers along the Belubula river use the water to irrigate their crops and water their stock will not be able to do so as the water will be contaminated with chemicals form the tailings dam.
-In the appendixes created by McPhillamys, they have stated that the explosions in the mine will have the equivalent volume level that of lightening. On my property me and my family enjoy riding our horses to muster stock. We will not be able to ride our horses because horses get easily spooked by lightening and loud noises and with the regular explosions from the mine will cause the horses to spook easily and put us in danger.
To sum up my objection to the McPhillamys Gold Project, I am the fourth generation to live along the Belubula River and use it for farming. I do not want to have to deal with the consequences of the mine when it is operating and even after it has ended because I do not want to see the river and my family's farming land get ruined and never be able to recover from the damage.