FARMERS in the Dargo, Glenaladale, Walpa and Lindenow district - still recovering from this year’s bushfires and last year’s floods - are protesting against mineral sands exploration for zircon and titanium deposits on private land.
Last year Kalbar Resources acquired, from Rio Tinto, exploration licences over 800 square kilometres of East Gippsland stretching from west Stockdale to Orbost; and is concentrating its efforts on the Dargo-Glenaladale-Walpa-Lindenow agricultural area.
A recent attempt to investigate deposits in the Mossiface agricultural district revealed poor results, according to managing director Rob Bishop, so Kalbar Resources have turned their attention to Glenaladale.
Some of the farmers involved say they were contacted in the aftermath of this year’s bushfire and were too busy and stressed with their circumstances to deal effectively with the approach from Kalbar’s representatives.
A community meeting was held last month between residents in the district to discuss the implications of exploratory drilling that has been occurring and gather concerns which have since been collated into written form.
However, a number of farmers that Stock & Land has spoken to said they were unaware until recently if the drilling affected them and were still trying to understand the implications of it; but they were concerned about the long term implications.
Referring to people’s right to choose what they did with their freehold land, one farmer said mining, if it involved buying farms, would give people an opportunity to retire and asked 'who had the right to judge?.'
Another farmer said he had spent his lifetime on the farm and recent broad-scale improvements after this year’s bushfire meant he wasn’t going to easily give up his right to farm.
Both these attitudes reflect the Victorian Farmers Federation’s policy on mining exploration.
Some Glenaladale-district residents have written letters of objection to the Victorian government’s Department of State Development.
Mr Bishop said that no drilling would occur on farms where Kalbar Resources was denied right of entry – this included where drilling might already have occurred.
The heavily agricultural district is reliant on irrigation water and, alongside beef and dairy farming, is the centre of a significant vegetable growing industry and the recipient of a recent federal funding announcement to explore the viability of off-river water storage.
As well as individual’s concerns about exploration on their land, there are community concerns about the size of a quarry or open-cut mine and about impacts on air and water.
However, Mr Bishop said the idea of a mine at Glenaladale was in the far distant future.
“Our plans are quite short term,” Mr Bishop said.
“We’ll drill next year to see if the initial results reinforce our confidence in the estimates of 1.6 billion tonnes of heavy minerals.
“It’s going to take several years before we’d be looking at mining and then there’s the environmental effects and other investigations to undergo before we could proceed.
“We don’t know what a mine on that site will look like yet.”
Mr Bishop said the drilling so far had not encountered any aquifers.
A public meeting at Glenaladale community hall tonight (Wednesday, December 10), starting at 7.30pm, will enable Mr Bishop to discuss Kalbar Resources’ current and proposed works, answer questions and give people in the local community an opportunity to formally raise their objections.
