The Tasmanian Greens today called on the Minister for Environment to investigate potentially serious irregularities in the approval process for Venture Minerals’ Riley Creek mine, and commit to properly assessing the cumulative impacts of all three proposed mines.
Greens Member for Braddon Paul O’Halloran MP said that the published guidelines for the approval process requiring the proposal to be considered alongside the company’s other two mine projects had been deleted from the EPA website.
“5.2 Cumulative Impacts: The DPEMP should consider the cumulative impacts on protected matters, of the proposal with other current or planned developments in the vicinity of the site (particularly the Livingstone DSO Hematite Project … and the Mt Lindsay Tin-Tungsten-Magnetite-Copper Mine … Such impacts may include the potential increase of traffic between mine sites that will have a likely impact on Tasmanian Devils, Spotted-tailed Quolls and Wedge-tailed Eagles. “
“The guidelines requiring all three Venture Minerals proposals to be assessed simultaneously mysteriously disappeared from the EPA website last week, after approval for this mine was granted,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“It looks a lot like the rules for this approval process are being changed on the fly, to allow for this disastrous project to go ahead with an incomplete environmental assessment.”
“The cumulative impacts of these mines has to be assessed, and simply deleting the guidelines is not going to address the serious environmental damage this strip mine will create in the Tarkine.”
“The Minister needs to investigate why Clause 5.2 has not been followed, and determine whether or not the EPA was in breach of its own guidelines in approving this project.”
“The Minister must request the EPA revoke the approval conditions and recommence the assessment at a time when documentation on all three projects is available.”
Paul O’Halloran MP Greens Member for Braddon Wednesday, 22 May 2013
