Rehabilitating abandoned mines could create thousands of ‘badly needed’ jobs opines the GreenLeft ABC.
In reply the Qld Mines Minister Anthony Lynham puts a logical view about disused mine sites.
He says – “…many old mines still contain valuable resources waiting to be exploited.”
“There are a lot of resources left in old tailing dams, old tailing deposits. I’d love to see resource companies come to us with innovative ideas of how they can access those deposits,” Dr Lynham said. “Rehabilitation can extinguish a resource.”
Great to hear a politician talking common sense.
I notice the ABC is providing a free forum for the “Lock-The-Gate” anti resource industry propagandists. Disgusting, fire the lot of them.
Agree Beachgirl. I watched that ABC program with dismay. I understand that the Mary Kathleen deposit was relatively high grade and small. I believe all the useful ore was recovered. It is now a hole in the ground with nearly all the original material which had some radioactivity and was naturally present now removed. It more contaminates the area than what was originally there. Anyway mining the deposit was approved by the ALP and was carried by a friend of the ALP -Tristan Anitico.
Sorry got a bit mixed up Antico was involved with Kathleen Investments and the Nabarlak uranium deposit
” Pioneer’s mineral operations expanded considerably in 1979, notably in uranium and beach-sands mining. Ampol and Pioneer formed a new, jointly owned company to control new mineral acquisitions: the Nabarlek uranium mine and Queensland Mines Ltd., another major uranium producer. When Queensland Mines and Kathleen Investment (Australia) Ltd., a major beach-sands mining company, became wholly owned subsidiaries of Pioneer in 1981, the company’s profits rose by 30% in one year.
It seems that Rio Tinto ran the Mary Kathleen mine which was considered for reopening in 2014