Australian Zircon had a public viewing of a summary of where the project is up to thus far.
The mine area will be located 1.4 kilometres from the northern edge of the National Park and FOGGs feel there will be impacts on the National Park.
- The life of the mine will be 25 plus years.
- The active area at any given time will be around 300 ha.
- The mining and rehabilitation for any specific area is expected to be less than three years.
FOGGs committee made comments on the scoping study in September last year, and will be looking carefully at the Environment Effects Statement which will be available to the public in a couple of months. It will be a very large document and will be able to be viewed at a few public places, for those who don’t want to print off reams of paper. After its release there will only be a couple of weeks to make comments to the state government. This document is then sent to State and Federal ministers for approval.
Subject to a positive outcome from the feasibility study and all approvals from state and federal governments mining could begin in 2015. The company who would be doing the actual mining are Orient Zirconic.
The Environment Effects Statement may be out before our next newsletter so people can check the Australian Zircon website http://www.auzircon.com.au/wim150-project/ or let me know if you want to be notified when it is available for public viewing.
Wendy Bedggood, Secretary