counting down and out - where are we in the run up to 10/10/10?

Marathon Resources' Chris Schacht - a former federal Labor senator - gave us another 'interesting' take on his company's situation in the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary yesterday, declaring on radio that they are entitled to be there because it turns out Arkaroola is only a pastoral lease, rather than a sanctuary!

On the Local 891 morning show the ABC's Matthew Abraham had responded to Schacht's original assertion that Marathon is entitled to mine in Arkaroola because 'it's a pastoral lease' by asking if it wasn't also a 'wilderness reserve'. Schacht responded -

No no, it’s a pastoral lease, under the law of South Australia it is a pastoral lease and the Arkaroola owners pay a fee as a pastoral lease, and that … by being a pastoral lease it has mining entitlements.

Those who have been following this issue - and this blog - may remember some of Chris Schacht's other 'interesting' takes, particularly at this time last year where he more-or-less suggested on the same ABC program that what Marathon had done during the dumping scandal was only a little light littering, and that the deposit at Mount Gee is 'the second biggest single deposit of uranium after Roxby Downs'! (See Dial M for Misinformation?!')

Just as before, it is surprisingly easy to refute Schacht by going to - Marathon's own publications! The company publicly released a federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) referral for their proposed project in September 2007. In it, in section 2.3 on page 3 marked 'Locality' you will find the following -

The Mount Gee deposit is located on the Arkaroola Pastoral Lease, a gazetted Sanctuary under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1972. The Arkaroola Sanctuary is operated as an ecotourism venture, hosting accommodation, scenic and educational activities. [Emphasis mine. h/t Dennis Walter]

In fact, at the Sprigg family's instigation Arkaroola was first declared a 'private wildlife sanctuary under [the] fauna conservation act' in 1969! And was formally declared a Sanctuary under the 1972 NPWS Act in 1996, nine full years ahead of Marathon's 2005 lease. [See here]

I think that's rather definitive, don't you? The anachronistic persistence of the mining industry's over-reach is one thing, this areas legitimate right to preservation - as espoused by those who can genuinely see it - is quite another.


but wait, there's more! -


Of course, the fun never really ends when some are involved, and Schacht also asserted -

I would point out that Mr Parnell’s amendment to ban all mining at Arkaroola, about eight, ten days ago … in the Legislative Council, the Labor and the Liberal party combined to defeat it, 15 votes to five. So both major parties opposed his amendment to ban mining full stop at Arkaroola.

Um, weeeeell, technically yes, Chris, but were you listening to the bit where the leader of the opposition actually said the following just before you spoke?

We believe that the Government’s intention is to allow mining. We want to seek to prevent them from doing that... at the moment Arkaroola is in an... environmental class A zone, where conservation of the environment and landscape is the paramount aim and the objective says mining operations should not take place unless the deposits are of such paramount importance and that exploitation is in the highest national or state interest that everything else can be over-ridden and we don’t think that you’d ever get to that situation given that there’s potentially about 30,000 tonnes in Arkaroola and 2.5 million at Olympic Dam … we want to maintain it as a Zone A, but the Government in their [Seeking] a Balance report at the end of last year wanted to move the boundary of Zone A and make it much more accessible to mining...[emphasis mine]

or even? -

our position is we believe Arkaroola’s precious and shouldn’t be mined [emphasis mine]

Or perhaps you read the press release on her website, Chris? It's helpfully called 'Liberals will move to protect Arkaroola' and this is what it says -

The State Liberal Party has decided that it will reject any proposal by the Government, now or in the future, to water down the Environment Zone A Protection that protects Arkaroola.

In its “Seeking a Balance” Report of late 2009 the Government suggested removing the Zone A Protection over the area of Arkaroola which is subject to the exploration licence of Marathon Resources. Removing this protection would open the door for miners to access Arkaroola.

Zone A Protection makes it clear that mining should not take place unless the deposits are of paramount importance and their exploration is in the highest national or state interest.

The Liberals believe that Arkaroola must be protected by maintaining its Environment Zone A Protection. Whilst the Liberals are very supportive of mining, including uranium mining, in this state, Arkaroola deserves the highest environmental protection.

To that end the Liberals will seek to amend the appropriate legislation to prevent any reduction in the level of environmental protection that exists under Zone A as it relates to Arkaroola.

So, leaving aside the politics of the Libs not supporting a Greens bill, it's clear that they will take the line that the Environmental Class A Zone provisions of the Planning Act, if understood in plain English, mean that mining is not possible now, and is not foreseeably likely ever to be possible, in the Arkaroola Sanctuary.

Just as was clearly the intention of those who wrote them. Just as I have frequently asserted myself.


remind me again; why are the miners even there?


This, being the state government's own legislation - in fact, Minister Holloway is responsible for it in his role as Planning Minister - rather begs the question of why Marathon was allowed to be there in the first place.

And what it is doing there now, for that matter. It's very hard to disagree with another of Redmond's statements -

[T]he Government shouldn’t have issued the new licence in our view, because if you don’t want mining to take place why would you issue a licence for people to explore given especially that these people breached their previous licence and therefore the Government would have been quite entitled not to renew it.

(Though this also begs the question of why the Libs waited so long to outrightly oppose mining - how different the state election result might have been had they taken this principled position ahead of the last lease renewal! But we press on, noting missed opportunities all 'round...)

Yes, Marathon's lease renewal is due on 10/10/10.

And now we find ourselves in a situation where Minister Holloway continues to defend his 2009 decision on the basis of his bizarre analogy of a perceived automatic entitlement to a drivers licence renewal. Is anyone, even Paul Holloway, really convinced by this line?

Minister, might we not consider that, if there'd been a serious and persistent breach of the rules that pertain to it, no-one should be entitled to view any licence as A Right. Particularly a right of access to profit from a public resource? And impinge upon very public landscape? Particularly where this licence renewal was actually at your absolute discretion?

In the circumstances hiding behind 'strict-interpretation' proceduralism was a cop-out, surely?

(And even if we accept your own analogy, does the community really expect that we must automatically renew the licences of, say, persistent hoon offenders even if they're not technically suspended at the time their renewal falls due and their fines are not in arrears? This coming from a government that wants to confiscate and crush cars! Similarly, as Matthew Abraham pointed out, this is ironic coming from a team that was perfectly happy to draft populist and draconian anti-association laws to contend with the bikie menace, real and imagined!)


now, there's no call for a ruckus down on the plantation!


Then there's what I think of as the Slavery argument. You know; we've always has Slavery here in the South - in fact, we've just celebrated the centenary of Slavery. Our economy depends on it. Therefore Slavery is an unquestionable good and it's persistence cannot be challenged. Substitute 'mining' and 'Arkaroola' for 'Slavery' and 'the South' and you get the idea! I'm not saying they're moral equivalents - the point, and it should be obvious, is that it's not exactly, um, logical to reason like this! 'Is' does not mean 'ought' and all that...

Oh, and then there's 'Sovereign Risk' - always pronounce it with The Capitals - an Economic voodoo term that might sound impressive but whose applicability in this situation is, well, debatable, to say the least! Just imagine the flight of investors had Marathon been held to account by withholding a new lease in light of their serious and persistent breaches of the existing one! Or if another one tenth of one percent of the land area of SA was taken out of the hands of the mining industry, leaving them with only 93% or so to work in! Oh, the humanity!...

But now we know what Holloway will probably do, come the lease renewal on the tenth, if he hasn't done so already. (My attempts to query his office directly on this for the last couple of days may yield results tomorrow!)

What we don't have to do is wear this. I don't think that Labor can seriously doubt that being seen as the only advocates of a possible mine in Arkaroola is electorally suicidal. The community's patience is wearing very thin indeed: Labor blew last year's opportunity to get out of it; if they persist now just watch the issue go national, and their poll numbers take a serious - yes, even more so! - dive...


 

dial M for misinformation?!

Marathon Resources director - and former federal Labor Senator - Chris Schacht has an 'interesting' take on the Arkaroola dumping scandal, and one that's surprisingly easy to contradict, even by taking a quick glance at the the company's own 'Waste in the Wilderness' document, a mea culpa they issued in response to it!

But, nevertheless, here he is on local ABC Radio 891 on the morning of Monday the 7th of September -

It was true we made a mistake on the disposal of waste material, none of which was radioactive … I just simply say to Nicky [a phone-in caller - BJD] what happened was instead of tipping the waste out of the bags into a trench and covering it over, which was legal, we left it in the bags and that was illegal...

Firstly; not radioactive? What are they looking for, treacle? As Greens MLC Mark Parnell responded (see below) "Well, they're wasting their time drilling there then!"

To quote the Primary Industries and Environmental Protection Authority joint investigation..

The inspection of sample bags uncovered in the test pits confirmed that a number of the bags containing sample drill material exhibit radioactivity levels consistent with that of ore grade material.

The investigation confirmed that Marathon Resources did not undertake to advise or request approval from any SA Government regulatory authorities (EPA and PIRSA) in relation to disposal of potentially radioactively contaminated sample bags/waste.

just a little light littering?


One does wonder how Schacht can have felt confident making these claims in public; but with the ABC's Abraham and Bevan at the helm it seems he hardly need have worried overly much! David Bevan even persisted in trying to tease out the notion that the company was merely 'done' for littering! -

Bevan: Yeah, so your offence is you left some plastic bags there?

Schacht: Absolutely and that is a breach of the regulation of which we admit our mistake and have changed.

Bevan: It was littering.

Schacht: Yes, of course.

Let's take a look at the relevant documentation, shall we?

Firstly, here's how the PIRSA / EPA report described the waste:

Test pits excavated under EPA supervision confirmed the presence of 2 large trenches and the extensive burial of drill samples contained within plastic and calico bags.

The excavation of test pits confirmed the burial of general waste including, cardboard, plastic jars, pvc pipe, paper, packing material, a food container and wrapper within the two trenches.

The full extent of burial of sample bags and general waste was not investigated on 16 January 2008 but has subsequently been confirmed by Marathon. Marathon advises that the number of sample bags is likely to be around 22,800.

and further -

Marathon representatives admitted on-site and in other documents subsequently supplied to PIRSA by Marathon that:

Two trenches were excavated with approximate dimensions of 35m (length) x 4m (width) x 2.7m (depth) by declared equipment and filled with approximately 22800 sample filled bags together with general waste.

Marathons disposal of plastic and calico bags containing sample material does not comply with the following PIRSA approval conditions for the use of Declared Equipment dated 1 November 2006 [this is about using large bulldozers to excavate big holes when you're not supposed to- BJD ]:

Condition 2 - The work is undertaken in accordance with that described in your DEF (received 20 October 2006) and subsequent memorandum of 31 October 2006. Where there is a variation between your proposal and this approval, the conditions of this approval will take precedence.

Condition 6 - Due care is taken to prevent unnecessary environmental damage.

Condition 9 - Exploration contractors and field staff be advised of the environmental objectives of the program, and have a clear understanding of their environmental management responsibilities.

PIRSA also issued the following instructions to Marathon -

PIRSA directs that all unauthorised buried drill sample material [NOTE: NOT just plastic bags - emphasis mine] and general waste at this site must be safely excavated and removed from EL 3258. The site must be rehabilitated back to as close as possible to original conditions [NOTE: because they were never entitled to excavate these trenches in the first place].

leave it out!


In other words, Schacht's claim that it would all have been OK if they'd shaken the rubbish out of the bags is as absurd as it appears.

Marathon was not entitled to excavate 2 very large trenches in the heart of the Sanctuary and conceal all the waste in it, bagged or otherwise. They were supposed to have promptly returned the drilling waste to the original drill holes or associated sumps and mud-pits, and to have taken the PPE and other materials off-site altogether for proper disposal.

The whole idea was to minimise your impact on the local environment, guys! As the PIRSA / EPA report makes clear.

And you don't have to look far to confirm this. Here's the relevant excerpt from the company's own publication,'Learning From Waste in the Wilderness'

Appreciating the risks associated with uranium exploration and mining

Marathon’s DEF specifies how its drilling program is to be managed. The DEF also specifies safety measures for planning and managing work at the Mt Gee drill sites and for managing the disposal of low-level radioactive materials and mining samples. The DEF specifies measures for the bagging and burial of drilling samples, noting that these were ‘developed and approved by the EPA’ and ‘will be implemented’. Under these safety measures Marathon was to:

Have staff dispose of used filter cartridges, and personal protective equipment (PPE) in sealed plastic bags placed in steel drums to be then removed from the site and disposed of through the general waste system away from the Arkaroola site; and

Have excess bulk drill cuttings returned principally to the drilling hole...

The DEF specifies that the bulk of material will be returned to the drill hole. [emphasis mine] It also specifies that all sampling (assay, archive and PIRSA representative samples) and down hole logging would be completed within 2 weeks of drilling, to allow rehabilitation of drilling sites to be concluded preferably within 4 weeks of drilling...

Marathon’s Radiation Safety Plan, Environmental Program and its operational procedures were not focused sufficiently on the need to exercise care with the disposal of uranium-related drilling and assay samples as well as clothing and other materials used when drilling for and handling these materials...

There were also operational and technical failures that contributed to bringing about allegations of site contamination, investigation by PIRSA and EPA and the consequent suspension of further drilling, namely:

The bagged materials associated with the drill site were not returned to the main drilling hole and adjacent drill sump at the completion of drilling (as prescribed in the DEF and EPA guidance documents)[my emphasis]. This was because of delays of up to 6 months in receiving samples back from the laboratory. Marathon’s DEF states that ‘…rehabilitation of an individual drill site should be commenced and preferably completed within 4 weeks of drilling, all reasonable effort will be made to keep to this time frame’. Due to increased industry activity, there were lengthy delays in the return of assay results and materials. However, Marathon was obliged to store the materials until each drill hole was signed-off by PIRSA and its error in practice was subsequently to dispose of the materials without PIRSA/EPA approval.[my emphasis]

The used PPE was not bagged and placed in steel cans to be taken away for disposal through the normal refuse system away from the Arkaroola site. They were instead disposed of at the Arkaroola site.

credibility


Now, the company's done a lot of hand-wringing of late, and makes vociferous claims to have turned over a new leaf after they had strayed so far from the righteous path by illegally disposing of the waste.

And yet here's one of their directors and spokespeople making claims that appear to be an attempt to belittle the scale of their own previous transgressions! How will that affect the public perception of their credibility?

Which leads us to, on a lighter note, well, I can only say... wow! Now it's the second biggest uranium deposit in Australia!

I seem to remember the heady days only a few weeks back when it was the 5th! It's amazing what you can discover when you're not actually drilling!

But I'll let Mark Parnell tease out this discussion in the transcript of the 891 discussion, printed in full below.

ABC 891 discussion part II
Tuesday 8th September 2009

David Bevan [ABC Announcer]: The debate over Arkaroola is set to generate more heat than a nuclear power station. We’ve got an unusual alliance of people wanting to preserve the Arkaroola Station forever, no mining there at all. We had Mark Parnell on the program last week along with conservative MP, Nick Minchin and Iain Evans getting together and saying … leave Arkaroola alone, no mining in Arkaroola. Yesterday on this program Chris Schacht … a Director of Marathon Resources, a mining company that’s exploring that region. He was arguing for the case … for allowing Marathon to get in there and explore and provided they meet all of the environmental requirements that the authorities impose on them be allowed to dig the stuff up, that is uranium. Now, Mark Parnell wants to challenge some of the things that Chris Schacht said to our listeners yesterday … let’s just play you a small portion of what Chris Schacht said yesterday...

Chris Schacht, former Labor Senator, Marathon Board member and lobbyist [speaking [07-09-09]:… this is at least a $5 billion deposit.

Bevan: How do you know?

Schacht: Because already what we’ve explored and what we’ve declared to the stock exchange in both inferred and indicative resource and at roughly the present price it’d be around $5 billion...

Bevan: What, uranium?

Schacht: Uranium. It’s the second biggest single deposit of uranium after Roxby Downs …

Phone -in Caller Nicky: … I wanted to ask Chris why on earth we should allow a company anywhere near Arkaroola, that in your exploration was caught red-handed illegally dumping waste? It’s a disgrace and if you think there’s any credibility for this company after that, you can’t even get the exploration part right, what makes you think that we should believe you about a full-scale mine?

Schacht: It was true we made a mistake on the disposal of waste material, none of which was radioactive … I just simply say to Nicky what happened was instead of tipping the waste out of the bags into a trench and covering it over, which was legal, we left it in the bags and that was illegal and we accept that, we made a mistake. We have restructured the company, there’s been changes to the board, we’ve issued a major policy statement on what we’ve done to change the company as a result …

Bevan: Are you saying Marathon was guilty of nothing more than littering with some plastic bags?

Schacht: No, no we broke the regulation.

Bevan: … is that effectively what you did, you left some plastic bags?…

Schacht: No, no, we left the stuff in the plastic bag and buried it.

Bevan: Yeah, but you could have just tipped it out and it would have been fine.

Schacht: But that’s what the rules allow.

Bevan: Yeah, so your offence is you left some plastic bags there?

Schacht: Absolutely and that is a breach of the regulation of which we admit our mistake and have changed.

Bevan: It was littering.

Schacht: Yes, of course. [End excerpt]

Bevan: Okay, that’s Chris Schacht yesterday … Mark Parnell … why do you take issue with what Chris Schacht was saying?

Mark Parnell: There were two main things but I’ll start by saying Chris said none of it was radioactive. They’re wasting their time, they’re looking for uranium, if it wasn’t radioactive what they’ve pulled out of the ground then what on earth are they doing there?

But really the two things that I take issue with, the first of all is it is $5b. Now, people who hang around the stock market and mining companies understand that there are a number of scales of confidence that you can have when you’re looking for minerals. You’ve got things called indicated resources and you’ve got inferred. Inferred is not much more than a guess. Now, Marathon reported to the stock exchange in July this year and then had to put a correction in because they got their figures wrong. Their latest figures are four mega tonnes indicated, 47 inferred. So that 47 is not much more than guess work based on people sitting at computers screens imagining what the resource might be. So it is a long way away from saying this is a $5b resource.

The other thing I take exception to is this idea of waste, that it was just a few plastic bags … the littering. Well, goodness, there were drums, there were bags, there was a backhoe which was taken to part of the national estate. There was plenty of –

Abraham: What, they buried a backhoe or they used a backhoe?

Parnell: … they basically dug their trenches –

Abraham: Well it was 35 tonnes according to ABC News.

Parnell: - 22,000 bags of waste and it’s not just a question of it being the bags that were the pollution, the core samples are supposed to be put back down the core sample poles.

But the backhoe I referred to was referred to in the EPA and the Primary Industries report, basically it was vandalism of a national estate listed geological monument. And this is the so called fluorite deposit. They’ve never found where the material ended up, it’s worth an awful lot of money. [see the Case of the Missing Minerals]

So it wasn’t just a simple matter of littering, there was incident after incident of illegal behaviour and for Chris Schacht to just say … ‘It was just a minor thing and we’ve changed our ways’, I don’t believe him at all.

Phone-in Caller Anne: … I’m very disappointed with the fact that they’re trying to get mining there. It’s worldwide famous for its beauty. There’s plenty of uranium in the Northern Territory … it’s basically glowing with the stuff and I’m very disappointed in Chris Schacht for supporting it.

Phone-in Caller Peter: … the reason why we allow mining in Australia and let these leases is so that the people of Australia can get access to these minerals … in reality the people of Australia can’t get access to these minerals because the plan is to export it. So Australians don’t need the mining to happen.