McPhillamys Gold Project

PLEASE SEE ATTACHED

Please see attached

I have genuine concerns about the reduced volume of water flowing into the Belubula River that feeds into Carcoar dam and beyond. How can this be considered when water is scarce ? The effects for the landholders downstream , the biodiversity for our valued native flora and fauna?
The reduced volume is one concern , but I’m also very worried about the quality of the water.
Please investigate this proposal thoroughly as the consequences will be long term & far reaching. Future generations will be adversely affected if this mining project proceeds.

I am concerned about the risk of harmful substances including cyanide leaching into our local water supply/systems , water is the most important source to this planet & we all obviously need it more than we need gold I believe the risk of mine pollution getting into our water is very high as they are planning to build a mine on top of our water source/springs that run into the Belubula river,
Although they say that they will block the springs up & ‘seal’ the toxic wasteland tailings dams, leaks, floods, collapses & spills happen, they have happened before and destroyed entire river systems and surroundings , I don’t want the river to be affected by the mines or governments risk taking decisions.
The Belubula river flows through my home backyard as well as my work The Royal Hotel carcoar
- my children play and swim in it
- we have an abundance of wildlife living in our river including trout, platypus, ducks, frogs.
- I water our veggie garden that we eat from for home and in the process of starting another vegetable market garden for the pub so our customers will be eating the food that is watered & kept alive by the water in that river.
My business & my life will be badly impacted if The tailing dam for the mine is to leach into our water table, I am one of many that will be affected if this mine goes through.

Hort Enterprises set up in Orange in 1995 to service the Mining and Quarrying industry. Being a family business we came from a mining background and chose Orange because of the North Parks Mine, Browns Creek Mine and the surrounding Quarries. We also felt strongly that the Cadia Mine was going to get its approval and wonted to be reasonably established for the construction phase. The company started as Jeff Hort Engineering Pty Ltd. Named after my father who himself had worked his way up to General Manager level in the mining industry. We started as a small entity to find our feet and have continued to grow from those early days to now having 147 full time employees which consists of Trades People, Rubber Liners, Industrial Painters, Apprentices (a minimum of six taken on each year), Design Draftsmen, Mechanical Engineers, Accountant and Administrative staff. We employee 50 casual staff and use the services of 7 smaller subcontracting companies that average around 6 employees on a regular basis. We have only been able to achieve these numbers by being able to pick up contracts on mine sites in other States and Territories such as the South 32 Mine on Groote Eylandt and Cannington Mine in Queensland as well as the OZ Minerals Mine "Prominent Hill" in South Australia.
With the constant pressure being applied buy the States and Territories to hire locally there is always a constant threat that we may lose this work through no fault of our own. With the current mining presence in the area competition has increased with a number of similar companies like Hort Enterprises now being established in the area. Like us they all play there part in employing locals, training locals, giving school leavers an opportunity to get skilled into the industry and play there part in the future of the central west. Being a government body you would be aware with the ups and downs of the rural industry the mining community has assisted with providing a stability in the Central West.
Companies like Hort Enterprise also play a major part in attracting Skilled personnel out into the Central West not only from the NSW eastern sea board but also from interstate and in most cases they also bring young families that need everything that goes with it, from Shopping, schooling, hospitals, housing and so on. With the current crisis of the drought in NSW a number of our casual employees come from the farming community. This allows them to gain a second source of income by carrying out planned shutdown works with our mining customers which is normally a week at a time and then they return to the farm. The feedback we get from 80% of them is without this extra source of income and the flexibility they can work around there is a good chance they would have to try and sell or declare bankruptcy.
Hort Enterprises Pty Ltd has in the last two years started a construction business called Hort Construction Pty Ltd whom we have partnered with Sara Engineering on a 70% - 30% arrangement. We did this to put a local company in place to compete with the interstate companies coming into NSW bringing with them a lot of labour from those states to carry out the construction works. To us this was an opportunity being lost for local people and companies in the Central West. In the two years of its operation we have been able to keep $8 million dollars’ worth of work in NSW and employee NSW personnel to carry out the construction works. This in itself may not sound like a lot but when you have construction workers from small towns like Molong, Burke, Nyngan, West Wyalong, Mudgee that have wages earnings up to $60,000.00 on these projects that injection into their local community can be lifesaving to other businesses and it stops the need for those families to move to the cities in the search of work.
Working closely with the mining industry we are very aware of how environmentally aware they are and the efforts they go to, to insure their impact on the environment is minimal. This does not only go for them but is also a KPI put onto their suppliers like Hort Enterprises to insure we are working to their high standard. This intern is helping the environment by forcing non complying businesses to change their work practices or lose the work.
I would ask that the planning office take this submission in a positive motion for support from Hort Enterprises Pty Ltd for the McPhillamys Gold Project. Projects like this in our local area gives us not only the opportunity to employee more people during construction but to employ permanent maintenance and apprentice staff for the ongoing maintenance support the mine will require during its life span. It also gives us the ability and opportunity to maintain or increase revenue to continue to stay operational and the potential for further growth and the flow on effects to the local and broader communities.

WesTrac would like to register their support for the McPhillamy Gold Project.
Please refer to our attached letter of support.

Please see attached

Please see attached.

The reasons for my objection are as follows -
1. The proposed mine will sit at the head of the major Lachlan river system & any change to this catchment will be devastating to not only the local area but the entire system, community, landholders, irrigators & wildlife will all be affected.
2. The proposed mine is located in prime agricultural land. High rainfall, rich basalt soils with mild summer temperatures, key agricultural characteristics only a few areas in Australia can claim. This is currently demonstrated by the severe drought affecting NSW with the tablelands one of the few areas maintaining green feed & water in dams.
3. Land values in the area will decline.
4. The proposed mine will create a negative effect on the surrounding landscape, rich timbered hills & valleys turned into dirt piles. Not only will many families look upon the mine & it surrounds but dust and explosions will be felt in Blayney itself.
4. Air pollution will increase in a substantially populated area.
5. The proposed mine will not benefit the local community through jobs and services as claimed. Orange is already a developed mining industry hub not only servicing Cadia but the numerous mines in the western areas. Claims of boosting the local economy are not substantiated.

Objections and concerns re Regis’ proposed McPhillamys gold mine near Blayney
1. Removal of water from the ecosystem: The proposed Mine is said to consume an estimated 890 mega litres (ML) of groundwater per year during construction and 200ML per year will drain into the permanent 460m-deep pit after operation. This water will be drawn from the Lachlan Fold Belt which would otherwise feed the Lachlan River. The mine is a substantial water consumer and remover, in an area of low rainfall, where all clean water is precious.
2. Damage to the natural springs: The construction of the tailings dam entails plugging up seven (7), natural springs with concrete. Downstream users, farmers and others, partly (although significantly,) depend on them, together with other natural rain water flow which is to be permanently prevented from leaving the mine site. Hydrology is recognised as an inexact natural science; there would have to be a level of uncertainty of what plugging up the springs will cause (and hence the consequences) to the natural groundwater when it is prevented from coming to the surface.
3. Possible pit leakage: The depth of the permanently formed pit will be below the aquifers and stream height. There is the concern that the Belubula River, only 100m away, will flow backwards. The pit won’t be lined, which also means that should earthquakes and/or unexpected leakage occur, pollution from its contents is possible. There was a recent earthquake near Newbridge and there have been others near Orange.
4. Degraded imported brine: There is a planned 80km pipeline to be built from sites including Springvale mine to bring brine concentrate. Wallerawang power station cooling towers had $25 million worth of damage from such brine. The EPA does not allow it in Sydney's Coxs River water supply: all microbiotic life has been lost from the Coxs River for quite some distance due to it. The brine concentrate use includes keeping down dust, so in other words more salts are introduced into the area. When the water part of this brine dissolves, could these dried salts be blown to other areas outside the mine area via the prevailing wind, increasing the area of degradation it causes?
5. According to the plan, the two storage dams on the site do not have to, and are not planned to, be lined. This is a risk, as the stored brine has polluting, damaging salts. There is the possible scenario of flooding rains, when these dams could overflow and the contents escape the mine area.
6. Toxicity and the lack of rehabilitation: Toxic metals brought to the surface and side-products of the operations are to remain on-site and are not going to be cleaned up: there's to be a tailings dam of 600 acres, which would hold the mining’s arsenic, mercury and lead residues – in perpetuity. It is to be covered over and shallow-rooted plants only grown (not trees, as these would send roots down deeply and die due to the toxic deposits lower down). It would leave the place in a worse, degraded state.
7. The net economic benefit to the NSW economy from the McPhillamys Gold project is estimated to be less than a quarter of a percent of NSW GDP (˂ 0.25%). Some short term economic benefits of this proposal will go to the local community; however Regis' September 2019 Corporate Update lists only 30% of shareholdings as being Australian owned, 27% USA, 14% UK or Europe, 29% other parts of the world.
8. Blasting, transit of heavy vehicles (24/7?), and noise.
9. Effect on the natural fauna and flora. Although the mine site has fragmented tree cover, a koala was recorded in the area. Koalas move around, so where there is one, there would very likely be more.
The offset area Regis has purchased already has its flora and fauna, and cannot simply accommodate those that lose their habitat in the mine area. New plantings, eg around the perimeter on site cannot support the fauna to be displaced; for example, height of trees needed for birds to nest; and development of tree hollows, on which a large number of fauna depend on for hiding, breeding and resting, develop when trees are very old, at least 100 years.
10. Medical knowledge tells us that physical surroundings affect our emotional and physical body and health. This is not a health-giving project.
11. Green House Gas Emissions: We do not need more gold, and this project will cause pollution in many forms. We need clean water, agricultural land and a healthy environment.
All of us, and especially governments, have the grave responsibility to future generations to maintain, or even better, enhance, environmental sustainability. This project does not do that. This mine is planned for some short term gain, having a proposed life of only 10 years, and leaving a permanent, harmful legacy which cannot be rehabilitated. I ask it be rejected.

SUBMISSION CONCERNING PROPOSED McPHILLAMYS GOLD PROJECT SSD-9505 ( 9821 )

Greg HOOPER
2745 Mid Western Hwy
KINGS PLAINS 2799
Phone 02 6368 2804 / 0467 884 117

Our property is Cedar Hill 2745 Mid Western Highway, Kings Plains, with our residence identified as R15 in the documents. It is located on the southern side of the Mid Western Highway diagonally opposite the waste rock emplacement site and site entrance at the eastern end of the mine site.
I acknowledge that the local staff from REGIS have professionally presented their company’s proposal to the community in a courteous and approachable manner. I also recognise that those interests of the company as presented are often inconsistent with the basic interests of the community, including the residents of Kings Plains who are in close proximity to the proposed mine.
General observation about changing so much natural and traditional land to extract such a small quantity of material - mere grams of gold per tonne of ore let alone waste rock and overburden. A great and lasting cost and change to our community and individual local residents for the financial benefit of a few private individuals who will abandon this area once they have extracted that little bit of gold and wealth that they want. 10 – 15 years mine project life is very short term compared with the eternal effects on the environment and landscape. The EIS recognises that works and remedies are restricted in order to maximise the marginal expected profits – not minimise their impact or justly compensate those who are adversely affected.
Water – ground, surface, introduced polluted industrial wastewater, using pit as a sump to obtain groundwater which would be considered as on-site yield and not be otherwise accounted for. Effects on Belubula River itself will be addressed by others- I endorse their concerns. We are upstream of the site and not directly affected by surface water but I am seriously concerned about uncertain effect on ground water ( including springs and our bore ) and the dust on our roof affecting the only source of our precious drinking water.
Quality of life – light pollution, change of vista for ever, noise ( including traffic and operational noise, reversing alarms etc ), dust, health, stress, local community disintegration. Quality of dust as well as quantity. Dusty winds from NW ( ie hot, dry dusty weather direction ) directly affect us. Affect of dust on breathing ( I have asthma and my wife Kay already has serious lung problems ) and fallout on roofs which collect our only source of potable drinking water. The EIS recognises that dust control at the waste rock site are not feasible or effective. We are in close proximity and overlook and look down on the waste rock site which can not be screened. With only about ¼ of the internal access road proposed to be sealed, much dust will be generated by the expected 500 or so vehicles per day each way ( 1,000 vehicle movements per day ) accessing the site. A public road would be fully sealed at much lower traffic volumes.
The dust will also affect pastures, the water quality in the dams from run-off from dust-coated land and the health of our stock which feed on the pastures and drink the dam water,
The mine dust also affects paintwork on vehicles ( as clearly seen at Cadia mine ) and probably have similar effect on metal roofs etc.
Affect on property values. We chose this location for serene, peaceful and clean rural environment with magnificant views including to mountains 50 km away. Raising the horizon by at least 60 metres to RL 1075 metres with waste rock over a large area to form the highest mountain in the district and much closer to our boundary will forever affect our views over a 90 degree arc from the front of our house. Ch. 10 – Noise – does not recognise the noise from the waste rock site as it affects R15 and R16. Whilst our residence is included in the same noise and dust contours on many of the maps, it is not included in some of the text as other similarly affected residences .
Whilst the open cut and plant will be hidden behind the waste rock mountain and not be directly visible from our residence, the light glow will continue and the view of the waste rock emplacement so close to us will mean our residence will be one of the most visually affected in the district.
Electricity – the mine will be a big user of baseload power in a dwindling supply market, government appears to be not actively concerned with supply, all consumers will be affected, increased costs, increased risk of blackouts etc. Need to upgrade supply lines to supply 26 – 28 MW. Option 1 includes duplication of the existing 66KV Bathurst to Blayney line which traverses our property. Our current domestic supply is an 11KV line through mine-owned property which may be impacted by the waste rock area. Chapter 12 refers to greenhouse gas emissions from purchased electricity with no provision to offset these emissions. The world is trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – not increase them.
Traffic issues with intersection, weather, high speed location on gradient near curves, further restriction to highway traffic following fairly recent highway realignment. RMS may need to consider need for speed restriction zone ( 80 kph ) in the vicinity of the entrance. Special care should be taken to ensure any signage does not interfer with sight from existing property accesses. The general east – west alignment of the highway affects vision especially at sunrise and sunset. This area is also affected by fog, frost and snow through a shaded cutting on a curve .
Traffic study area is from Walkom Road ( east ) to Dungeon Road. This should be extended eastwards to at least Pounds Lane due to visual distraction of the unscreenable waste rock emplacement for motorists. This section is a school bus route with pick up / drop off points. VP5 ( page 505 ) represents this vista and the peripheral view is similar to the full frontal vista from my residence.
Flashing wigwag lights / signs will affect light and visual pollution and will add to the night glow from the operation of the mine and the light of vehicles accessing the mine site.
Current proposal generates waste rock and overburden as well as the tailings waste from the ore material after the small quantity of metal is separated. Ongoing operation of the facility for processing of ore from other site(s) will continue to add to the tailings waste ( not included in this DA ).
Waste rock dump at the SE corner of the site in the immediate vicinity of my residence is unable to be screened and will affect the vista of the landscape and horizon forever. Noise from machinery, including back-up alarms on the waste rock site will be intrusive.
The EIS recognises that we are included in a group of residences which will be significantly adversely affected for various reasons ( including air quality / dust, noise, visual amenity and night light glow ) by this development. Regis has not offered us any remedial solutions or compensation for their affect on our lives or property. Regis has publicly stated ( Community Information Sheet No 8 p.1 ) that they are discussing mitigation options with neighbours and landowners in Kings Plains, some of which will require ongoing costs or restrictions.
Regis has NOT worked closely with us to understand our concerns or develop an individual property plan to address the impact.
We did not choose to live in this rural environment to be forced to live in a contained and enclosed environment or lose our panoramic views by screening. There would be ongoing cost for electricity for air conditioning.
Kings Plains residents are being treated as collateral damage.

Please contact me if you require further information concerning this submission or to inspect our location to verify the points raised.
Thank you, in advance, for fairly considering my representations. Our lives and quality of our existence will be changed forever.


Greg Hooper
11 October 2019

See letter attached

I object to the building of this mine for many reasons. The first that is located at the head waters of the Belubulah river that is an upstream from the Lachlan river that farmers rely on for their crops and pasture. Water from the mine cannot be guaranteed not to pollute the river particularly a breach from the tailings dam. Also, on water. A lot of water will be used in the dam. This water should be used for the healthy environmental flows and agriculture. This is more important than a gold mine. On the topic of adding people and jobs to the town of Blayney and surrounds. Studies have shown and a statement from the EIS that only 20 new people will come to town to be employed while up to 200 people will leave the area because of the mine. How does this help. Now after mine is done and all the gold is extracted. The EIS from Regis says that a pit will be left with a mound of rock. How is that restoration be good for the region after the mine has gone. The pit will take water from the surrounding soil and not be available for the river system or agriculture. In Conclusion this mine is short sighted grab for cash that the local region does not need, in fact will suffer the environment effects, disruption to lifestyle and incomes from farming not to mention disruption on traffic, noise, light pollution at night. It is a bad idea.

I object to this project for the following reasons:
1. As a visitor to family and friends living in the area, I strongly object to the proposed destruction of the rural amenity of the area, as evidenced in similar mining operations in other areas.
2. I strongly object to the permanent destruction of the landscape by a short term mining operation i.e. there is to be no attempt at rehabilitation of the site after mining operations have ceased.
There is no justification whatever for a privately owned, profit making enterprise to permanently destroy the landscape which is ultimately owned by, and is the responsibility of, the Australian people as a whole.
3. The proposed usage of water for the mine will be detrimental to water supplies for existing users in the area.
Exploiting and interfering with the natural springs in the area in particular is highly likely to have wider effects on the already limited ground and surface water flows in the area. This will inevitably have major negative effects on wildlife in the area, already under extreme environmental pressure.
This is particularly significant in the current extended drought conditions, which are unlikely to change in the forseeable future given ongoing climate change.
4. This project has already been linked by the owners to other proposed mining projects in the area which will involve transporting large quantities of material between sites, creating noise, dust and road safety issues in the area.
5. The highly poisonous nature of the chemicals (eg cyanide) and heavy metals involved in the gold mining process poses a very great environmental risk over a time period well beyond the operational lifetime of the mine, as has been experienced with many other similar projects.

See attachment

The social and environmental cost of this mine are large and designed for foreign investors to make maximum profit. While Regis is an Australian owned company their shareholders are mostly offshore with less than 30% being Australian, so the money from the mine does not benefit Australians.

At a time when Bathurst and surrounding towns are entering severe water restrictions and we are facing our dams running dry next year, if we do not get some good rainfall. How can new mines in this area even be a consideration with the amount of water that is needed for the mining process?