New move to exploit Polina Road
RESIDENTS along Bridgetown’s Polina Road have been shocked to hear mining company, Bauxite Resources Limited (BRL) has applied for an exploration licence over the same area where they are fighting to prevent a gravel pit.
The area applied for runs from Hester Forest, south through Carbunup Brook, turns west below Yornup then northward along the west of the South Western Highway to Gifford’s gravel pit, and includes all the best gravel south of the shire.
Bridgetown-Greenbushes Friends of the Forest (BGFF) president Richard Wittenoom first realised the significance of the claim when he plotted the outlines of four current claims on his bushfire brigade maps on Saturday.
“Notices in the press for exploration licence applications are only described by a series of coordinates” he said.
“Unless landowners had been warned to look for an application, there is no way they would realise it could apply to their own property”.
Earlier BRL claims were brought to BGFF’s attention in July last year after it had won the fight to identify large areas of the Warrup Forest Block as “old growth”.
The group was shocked to find major bauxite exploration claims had been lodged over the whole area in 2008 and the time for objections had already passed.
“Objections to this new claim close on Friday March 5, 2010,” he said.
“I have written to the shire asking councillors to consider a motion at their meeting this Thursday for the shire to lodge an objection to this application.”
Mr Wittenoom said BGFF took the issue of the claims over Warrup to the WA Forest Alliance meeting in July
but there was little interest at the time. “Since then all hell has broken loose”. BRL has already mined some 30,000 tonnes of orefrom owner-held mineral rights farmland at Bindoon for trial shipments to China.
Commencing in 2011, it is planning a six million tonne a year direct shipping of ore (DSO). BRL is hoping to ramp this up further during 2012.
It is planning a distributed operation, with bauxite railed to and shipped from Kwinana, Albany and Bunbury.
Recently BRL signed a heads of agreement with a Chinese aluminium producer, aimed at developing a new alumina refinery based on its south Darling Range bauxite deposits, possibly exporting out of Bunbury.
An aluminium smelter at Kemerton has also been mooted.
A research group has been set up by the WA Forest Alliance and the Conservation Council of WA, with members representing all likely stakeholders in the north and south Darling Ranges.
Mr Wittenoom is a member of this group, which is planning a major campaign, aimed at stopping the introduction of a third alumina producer in the South West.
BRL has applied for about 17 000 square kilometres of exploration licences across a variety of land tenures in the northern (Bindoon) and southern jarrah forests and adjacent land.
Some tenement applications have been approved, while approval for the others is pending.
The majority (83 per cent) are on private freehold agricultural land, because it lies outside the existing Alcoa and Worsley State agreement leases.
Twelve per cent of the area is public land, mainly State forest but a variety of other reserve types, including national park.
However as most of the areas in the Eastern Darling Range are in cleared agricultural land, the proportion of native forest claimed in the South West jarrah forest is much higher. “Our concerns cover a number of areas,” Mr Wittenoom said.
“BGFF is obviously concerned at any further threat to the remaining high conservation value native forest.
“In addition the research group is concerned that mining on private land will destroy prime agricultural land, and drive down the values of adjacent properties who chose not to allow mining.”
“In Bridgetown-Greenbushes there is the additional concern for quality of lifestyle and the environment that has led to the opposition to proposed gravel pits in Kangaroo Gully and Carbunup Brook,” he said.
There was a further concern at the impact on the road system of disseminated bauxite operations, particularly on traffic through Bridgetown.
“If 1.5 million tonnes per annum was carted from south of Bridgetown to a railhead at Greenbushes, this would mean a B-double in Hampton Street every four minutes, in addition to what is already there,” he said.
“Combine this with 375,000 tonnes of logs a year from plantations north of Bridgetown to a biomass plant in Manjimup and the effect on Bridgetown would be beyond belief.”
Speaking from Bauxite Resources Perth head office yesterday, exploration and geology Peter Sanini, said a number of applications have been in for approval for some time.
“If approval is granted, we then have to go through a D E C assessment, followed by a mining department’s assessment,” he said.
“This could take anything from three to 12 months before we start doing anything in the district.”
• People wanting more details can phone Mr Wittenoom on 9761 1531 or 0427 611 511 or email bridgetown@wittenoom.com.au.
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