Satellite MODIS Aqua image – Green arrow points to dust particles from MMG Rosebery Mine and Bluestone Mine Tasmania Renison Bell emissions.
Acid Mine Drainage at Rosebery: Typical example of Acid Mine Drainage seeping through a Rosebery Street. This street lies below the open cut and behind is the emissions plume from the mine vent shaft. The drinking water supply intake from Mountain Creek is about half a kilometre to the east of this vent shaft plume and less than 1 km from the main mine operations.
This leaking water meter located in the Primrose area shows indications of the impact of Acid Mine Drainage. This meter is located close to the Filter Plant and railway line, and around the corner from Blackwood Street where TasWater found high Lead levels in the water supply earlier this year Nearby Filter Plant and Primrose Creeks have been found to have high levels of metals in AMD. Photo taken last week on 21-11-13. 2008 EPA seepage water results, using recreational guidelines, for Murchison Street properties found metal levels:
Arsenic Guideline is 70ug/L – results from samples were 170, 431, 482, 178, 65 and 370
Lead Guideline is 100ug/L – results from samples were 1,530, 248, 146, 721, 297, 1,300
Rosebery Main Street impacted by Acid Mine Drainage – in background is the mine vent shaft plume spewing over homes in Clemons and Murchison Streets where residents previously lived who were diagnosed with heavy metal poisoning by Dr Andreas Ernst in 2009.
AMD flowing down drain in front of MMG’ ‘s Main Street PR office. Photos by Kay Seltitzas.
Last year MMG paid for the remediation of the Child Care Centre playground which is located about 50metres over the road from the centre of the main MMG mine operations area. Calls for relocation of the child care centre to a safer distance from mine dust emissions continue to be ignored.
These National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) data graphs show MMG Rosebery Mine emissions to air – into a closed air shed – for Arsenic, Lead and Zinc in comparison to other top mining towns in Australia and to other polluters in Tasmania (estimates only):
* 500 kg per day(average) of combined Zinc, (mainly) Arsenic and Lead.
* 170,000kg pa of zinc and is the highest zinc emitter in the nation second only to Mt Isa at 99,000kg pa
* 1,300kg pa of Arsenic, 200kg pa less than Renison Bell with Temco at 1,800kg pa as the top arsenic emitter in Tas
* 100kg pa less Arsenic than in Port Pirie
* 11,000kg pa of Lead just below one quarter of that of Port Pirie at 46,000kg pa
