PShift Broadcast (4ZZZ) & 4PR Podcast on 8 Feb 2013
This land is mine Yeah I signed on the dotted line Campfires on the creek bed Bank breathing down my neck They won't take it away They won't take it away They won't take it away from me by kev carmody
This is an interview with Trevor Berrill about the effects of 2013 floods on mines and energy infrastructure in Queensland. There was no comment in the weather reports and flood warning about the real reason for the floods.
In a picture from the ABC website you can see the acid mine water gushing out the side of the mine pit. – (Ian Townsend).
At least our ministers didn’t come out with the reasons given in certain states of the United States i.e. ‘the floods are an act of god’.
Alternative methods of dealing with energy sources are proposed by Trevor Berrill.
Ian Curr
February 2013
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Nine days after the PShift broadcast (8 Feb 2013) about the impending disaster at Mount Morgan the ABC’s radio national Background Briefing takes up the story … the pH of the water in the Dee River shown below is 2.5. From my first year chemistry that’s means the containment dam is getting down to the acid level of Hydrochloric and Sulphuric acids plus there’s heaps of heavy metal contaminants … source say that the only comparable disaster of this type (where a solution was found) is in Butte, Monatana .. Qld government scientists are investigating what happened to the rivers there and how to prevent the dam wall from breaking. There only strategy is ‘dilution is the solution to pollution’ otherwise the dam walls breaks.
The Dee River in Queensland is being killed by toxic water from an old gold mine. Mount Morgan is one of thousands of abandoned and unregulated mine sites, many of which are leaking contaminated ‘legacy water’ into river catchments. Ian Townsend (ABC Background Briefing Sunday 17 February 2013 8:05AM) investigates.
Ian Townsend: This river in Central Queensland is dying. South-west of Rockhampton, an old gold mine is spilling acid water into the Dee River and now, downstream, the fish are literally gasping.
Neal Johansen: It looks great. Aqua blue-green sort of. Great look to it, looks refreshing if you wanted to go for a swim. Certainly not inviting when you look at the sediment on the bottom, however. My concerns are also for the people downstream and upstream from here and, of course, the aquatic life. We can see some small fish still swimming around here, but I would think given a few more days they will probably expire, I would imagine.
Ian Townsend: Torrential rain three weeks ago caused the abandoned Mount Morgan mine to spill highly acidic water laced with heavy metals. Read more at http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2013-02-17/4513916#transcript
The Dee River at Dululu, 55km downstream from the Mount Morgan mine. The blue colour comes from metals in the water. (Ian Townsend)
The abandoned Berkeley Pit Copper mine site in Butte, Montana, is a major component of the Butte Silverbow Creek Superfund site. It consists of several billion gallons of acid (pH 2-3) mine drainage that is contaminated with toxic levels of a variety of heavy metals, arsenic, and sulfuric acid … read more at Detoxification of Acid Mine Drainage Using High Performance Chelation Technology