Location | |
---|---|
Location | Batchelor |
Territory | Northern Territory |
Country | Australia |
Coordinates | 12°59′S131°01′E / 12.983°S 131.017°E |
Production | |
Products | Uranium |
History | |
Discovered | 1949 |
Opened | 1950 |
Closed | 1971 |
Rum Jungle or Unrungkoolpum is a locality in the Northern Territory of Australia located about 105 kilometres south of Darwin on the East Branch of the Finniss River and it shares a boundary with Litchfield National Park. It is 10 kilometres west of Batchelor. [2] [3] [4]
The joint traditional owners of this area and the Kungarakan and Warai peoples and their rights to this land are recognised in the Finnis River Land Claim which was granted in May 1981. [5] [6]
The European name for this area derives its name from an incident in March 1873 when the teamsters of John Lewiss who were carting stores between Southport and Pine Creek, tapped a cask of rum and shared it with local miners from the nearby John Bull goldmine. After they drank together they woke up to find that one of the teamsters had stolen 750 ounces of gold from the miners, along with their horses, and had disappeared. Searches for the thief lasted for a number of months until the teamster and the gold were found. [7] [8] The name was first used when reporting the death of Patrick Flynn in November 1873. [9]
One notable early resident who arrived in the area in 1909 was Nellie Flynn and her family; Flynn lived there until the 1970s and was a well-known identity in the area. [10] [11]
It is best known as the site of a uranium deposit, found in 1949, which has been mined. [12]
The first European person to travel to the Rum Jungle area was George Goyder in 1869; on this trip he noted an unidentified copper-like green ore in 1869 at "Giants Reef", which was later "rediscovered" and identified to be torbernite. [13] This discovery received minimal attention at the time and other Europeans and Chinese people began occupying the area, especially after the discovery of gold in the 1870s; prospectors also occasionally mined copper and other minerals on a small scale. [4]
These new arrivals exposed the local Aboriginal people (the Kungarakan and Warai) to a variety of illnesses and disease including smallpox, leprosy and tuberculosis. Aboriginal people were also subjected to trauma including the sexual exploitation of women, forced migration and massacres. [4]
One such massacre was the Stapleton Siding Massacre in July 1895 when 80 Aboriginal people were killed following the distribution of poisoned damper. Joe 'Pumeri' McGuinness was told the story by his mother Alngindabu, who survived the massacre, and said of it: [14]
The majority of the tribe (Kungarakany)... about one hundred people, became victims of poisoned damper... at a railway siding known as Stapleton... weed-killing powder... was supposedly mistaken for baking powder and added to the flour in preparing damper. Those who ate the poisoned damper became violently ill before their death.
— Joe McGuinness, Son of Alyandabu my fight for Aboriginal rights (1991)
This was one of at least three poisoning incidents suffered by the Kungarakan people. [15]
In April 1948 a notice was published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette that the Government was offering rewards for the discovery of uranium ore in Australia and offered a reward of £25,000. [16] This reward was offered due to an increased need for uranium during World War II and it was the United States and Britain that had identified Australia as a potential source. [4]
In 1949, John Michael "Jack" White discovered torbernite in old nearby copper shafts. [17] White was a buffalo shooter, crocodile hunter and prospector who held a small farm in the area with his Aboriginal partner (their name has not been shared). He recognised the uranium ore from a color pamphlet that had been produced as part of the announcement for the award and he delivered his samples to the Mines Branch in Darwin on 13 August 1949 and was later able to collect the full reward. [4] News of this discovery was published throughout Australia. [18] [19] [20] [21]
Work on developing the mine site began during the war as a project undertaken by the Allied Works Council but, to speed up progress, in 1952 the Australian Government funded the setting up of a mine and treatment plant to provide uranium oxide concentrate to the UK-US Combined Development Agency under a contract which ran from 1953 to 1962. [22] [23]
The mine was officially opened on 17 September 1954 and the event was attended by the then Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies who promised that "[t]he world will forget about atomic bombs and concentrate on using uranium for the benefit of humankind" while also talking about its importance in terms of the defence of Australia. [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] On 13 September, days before the mine officially opened, four staff of the mine were killed when two trucks collided. [29] [30]
The mine was the responsibility of Commonwealth Government, through the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, was responsible for it, although management of it was on a contract basis by Territory Enterprises Pty Limited, a subsidiary of the Rio Tinto Group. Batchelor, a nearby town, accommodated most of the mining personnel and grew significantly at this time. [23]
By 1959 the economically viable ore had all been extracted but operations continued, on a small scale until 1963, and work continued there until April 1971 as stockpiled ore from Rum Jungle and other sites around Australia (including from Eva Creek and Adelaide River) continued to be processed. [4] [31] [32] A total of 863,000 tonnes of Uranium ore were processed and much was sold on the open market; some of this was also stockpiled and held in storage at Lucas Heights Reactor in Sydney. [31]
The Rum Jungle mine closed in April 1971 [33] and the 200-hectare (490-acre) site was abandoned. [34] The Federal Government (which controlled the mine through its agency the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC), now known as Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) decided not to rehabilitate the mine site [ why? ]. The mining company Conzinc (now part of the Rio Tinto Group, which owns Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), operators of the Ranger Uranium Mine in Kakadu National Park) have consistently denied any responsibility for rehabilitation. This led to the mine becoming known as one of Australia's most polluted environments [23] due to the oxidation of sulphides and the release of acid and metals into the East Branch of the Finniss River. The 1500 mm annual rainfall, along with the pyritic mineralisation in the area, created ideal conditions for such oxidation.[ citation needed ]
An initial attempt to clean up Rum Jungle was made in 1977 following the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry (1976 - 1977), which led to the setting up of a working group to examine more comprehensive rehabilitation. A$16.2 million Commonwealth-funded program got under way in 1983 to remove heavy metals and neutralise the tailings. Of the damage to the Rum Jungle area the Commissioner of the Inquiry, Justice Russell Fox stated: [35]
[Rum Jungle] represents to many people, not least of all the Aboriginal people, an awful example of what should not be allowed to happen.
— Justice Russell Fox, Commissioner, Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, 1977
After mining, the area suffered elevated gamma radiation, alpha-radioactive dust, and significant radon daughter concentrations in air. These levels were so high that in the late 1980s it was decided that something had to be done.[ by whom? ] Radiation protection standards were being revised, so that the levels of pollution would now be officially recognised as unsafe for human health. As a result, a supplementary $1.8 million program to improve Rum Jungle Creek South waste dumps was undertaken in 1990.[ citation needed ]
One of the main environmental impacts of uranium mining is the creation of large volumes of radioactive mine waste (tailings) which are left behind on the site. The major radioactive component of these tailings is uranium-238, which makes up over 99% of what is naturally occurring uranium, and is not very radioactive. While figures concerning the half-life of an isotope are often presented as meaning the element is more dangerous, in the case of Uranium-238 being 4.47 billion years, the opposite is in fact true: half-life is the time in which half of a collection of an element will decay, and produce a radioactive particle, ergo, the longer the half-life, the less radioactive the element. In 2003, a government survey of the tailings piles at Rum Jungle found that capping which was supposed to help contain this radioactive waste for at least 100 years, had failed in less than 20 years. [36] The Territory and Federal Governments continue to argue over responsibility for funding rehabilitation on the polluted East Finniss River. [37] Contamination of local groundwater has yet to be addressed. [38]
One of the principal problems associated with rehabilitating the Rum Jungle Creek South (RJCS) open cut mine was that the area was converted to a lake after mining ceased; this is known as Rum Jungle Lake. It is considered to be the only water body in the Darwin region not infested with crocodiles and, after the mines closure, it quickly became very popular with locals and Darwin residents as a recreation reserve including activities such as swimming, canoeing and scuba diving. [39] [40] In November 2010 swimming was closed to the public after a series of recordings showed low levels of radiation; after testing by the Environmental Research Institute it was decided that the site was safe and it was reopened in October 2012. [41] As of June 2024 the Coomalie Community Government Council released a community survey regarding planned further rehabilitation works on the lake. [42]
In December 2001, Compass Resources lodged a Referral under the EPBC Act with Environment Australia (which is now DEH). That document referred to the proposed development of a large-scale mining project, the Browns Polymetallic Project, that would produce lead, cobalt, copper, nickel and silver over a project life of at least 15 years. As indicated in the 2001 Referral, Compass considered that the Browns Polymetallic Project was a 'nuclear action' under the EPBC Act, on the basis that the project could be considered to include rehabilitating a facility or area in which mining or milling of uranium ore has previously been undertaken. [43]
Compass suspended its work on the polymetallic proposal in 2002 when low metal prices caused the withdrawal of Compass's financial partner (Doe Run). [44]
In 2005, Compass lodged an application for a much smaller project focusing on cobalt, nickel and copper mining. Because this project, the Brown's Oxide Project is much smaller than the polymetallic project proposed previously, Compass is in a position to progress it on its own.
The Northern Territory Government has completed assessing this project and Marion Scrymgour MLA, Minister for Natural Resources, Environment and Heritage in the Northern Territory Government has advised that she has concluded that the Browns Oxide Project as proposed in the Public Environmental Report and subsequent documents "can be managed without unacceptable environmental impacts"
Kon Vatskalis MLA, Minister for Mines and Energy, announced this approval as "good news" during question time in the Northern Territory Parliament on 4 May 2006. To ensure the environment is managed properly, this approval and its recommendations is subject to final review by the Commonwealth Government under a bilateral agreement between the Northern Territory Government and the Commonwealth of Australia. [45] Pending final Commonwealth approval, the project is set to be in production by early 2007.[ citation needed ]
While the project is located near the old Rum Jungle mine, the Browns Oxide Project is targeting copper cobalt and nickel—not uranium. Nonetheless, Compass acknowledges that at some future point it would be interested in mining uranium at the nearby Rum Jungle site (over which it holds a lease). Any proposal to mine uranium would require a totally new application and environmental assessment as a separate project.[ citation needed ]
The major uranium prospects of Brown's, Intermediate, White's, White's extension and Dyson's occur northwest of, but parallel to, the northeast trending Giant's Reef Fault. Ore deposits occur in Precambrian carbonaceous slate and graphitic schist of the Lower Proterozoic Brooks Creek Group. Structurally, the deposits are within a sheared anticline on the southern flank of a granite dome. Primary minerals include chalcopyrite, bornite, bournonite, pyrite, and uraninite. Oxidized ores include azurite, malachite, pseudomalachite, iron oxides, torbernite, saleeite, and phosphuranylite. [46]
Uraninite, also known as pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the uranium causes the mineral to contain oxides of lead and trace amounts of helium. It may also contain thorium and rare-earth elements.
Litchfield National Park, covering approximately 1500 km2, is near the township of Batchelor, 100 km south-west of Darwin, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Each year the park attracts over 260,000 visitors.
Jabiluka is a pair of uranium deposits and mine development in the Northern Territory of Australia that was to have been built on land belonging to the Mirarr clan of Aboriginal people. The mine site is surrounded by, but not part of, the World Heritage–listed Kakadu National Park.
The Ranger Uranium Mine was a uranium mine in the Northern Territory of Australia. The site is surrounded by, but separate from Kakadu National Park, 230 km east of Darwin. The orebody was discovered in late 1969, and the mine commenced operation in 1980, reaching full production of uranium oxide in 1981 and ceased stockpile processing on 8 January 2021. Mining activities had ceased in 2012. It was owned and operated by Energy Resources of Australia (ERA), a public company 86.33% owned by Rio Tinto Group, the remainder held by the public. Uranium mined at Ranger was sold for use in nuclear power stations in Japan, South Korea, China, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the United States.
Compass Resources NL is an Australian mining and mineral exploration company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and currently in voluntary administration since 29 January 2009.
Energy Resources of Australia Ltd is a public company based in Australia. It is a subsidiary of the Rio Tinto Group which as of 2021 owns 86.3% of the company. The remainder is publicly held and traded on the Australian Securities Exchange. The chairman is Peter McMahon and Chief Executive is Andrea Sutton.
Kakadu National Park, located in the Northern Territory of Australia, possesses within its boundaries a number of large uranium deposits. The uranium is legally owned by the Australian Government, and is sold internationally, having a large effect on the Australian economy. The mining has been controversial, due to the widespread publicity regarding the potential danger of nuclear power and uranium mining, as well as because of objections by some Indigenous groups. This controversy is significant because it involves a number of important political issues in Australia: Native Title, the environment, and Federal-State-Territory relations.
The McArthur River mine is a zinc-lead mine, situated about 70 kilometres southwest of Borroloola, near the Gulf of Carpentaria in the northeastern Northern Territory, Australia. It is operated by McArthur River Mining (MRM), a subsidiary of the Swiss mining company Glencore. Although discovered in the 1950s, when it was originally called the HYC or "Here's Your Chance" deposit, it only opened as a mine in 1995. Initially an underground mining operation, the mine has been converted to open-cut.
Batchelor is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia. The town is the current seat and largest town of the Coomalie Shire local government area. It is located 98 kilometres (61 mi) south of the territory capital, Darwin. A number of residents commute to Darwin and its suburbs for work.
The Browns polymetallic ore deposit is a large ore deposit located at Mount Fitch, near Batchelor, 64 kilometres south of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
Mount Fitch is a former uranium mining site located in the Northern Territory of Australia 56 kilometres SSE from the centre of Darwin and 13.4 kilometres NE from the town of Batchelor in the locality of Rum Jungle.
Nuclear weapons testing, uranium mining and export, and nuclear power have often been the subject of public debate in Australia, and the anti-nuclear movement in Australia has a long history. Its origins date back to the 1972–1973 debate over French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the 1976–1977 debate about uranium mining in Australia.
The Nabarlek Mine is a uranium mine in the Northern Territory of Australia which was productively worked only in 1979. The deposit sits within the Alligator Rivers Uranium Field approximately 62 kilometres (39 mi) northeast of Jabiru. It was discovered by Queensland Mines Limited in 1970 by following up an intense airborne radiometric anomaly.
Radioactive ores were first extracted in South Australia at Radium Hill in 1906 and Mount Painter in 1911. 2,000 tons of ore were treated to recover radium for medical use. Several hundred kilograms of uranium were also produced for use in ceramic glazes.
Radium Hill is a former minesite in South Australia which operated from 1906 until 1961. It was Australia's first uranium mine, years before the country's next major mines at Rum Jungle in the Northern Territory (opened in 1950), and the Mary Kathleen mine in Queensland (1958). The associated settlement which once housed up to 1,100 people is now a ghost town, largely abandoned and demolished. The former townsite and cemetery were provisionally listed on the South Australian Heritage Register on 24 August 2016. During its main period of production between 1954 and 1961 the mine produced nearly 1 million tonnes of davidite-bearing ore to produce about 860 tons of U3O8.
The uranium mining debate covers the political and environmental controversies of uranium mining for use in either nuclear power or nuclear weapons.
The Yeelirrie uranium project is a uranium deposit located approximately 70 km southwest of Wiluna, in the Mid West region of Western Australia. The name Yeelirrie is taken from the local sheep station.
Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry (RUEI) (also known as the Fox Report) was a committee established by the Whitlam government in Australia, which sought to explore the environmental concerns surrounding uranium mining. The Inquiry was established in 1975.
The Finniss River is a river south of Darwin, running west from the flank of Mount Minza, passing north of Litchfield National Park and flowing into the sea at Fog Bay. The East Branch of the Finniss was heavily polluted during the 1970s due to uranium mining at Rum Jungle mine about 105 km south of Darwin. The Finniss River Land Claim was presented to Judge John Toohey in 1981 but the former Rum Jungle mine site, contained within Area 4 of the Finniss River Land Claim (1981) was excluded from the grant to the Finniss River Land Trust due to the concerns of the Kungarakany and Warai peoples who are joint traditional Aboriginal owners of that area.
The Kungarakany people, also spelt Koongurrukuñ, Kungarrakany, Kungarakan and other variants, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Northern Territory. They were called the "Paperbark People" by European settlers.
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