Mine needs cash
Main heading: State Mine manager Braxton Laine (right) and Friends of the State Coal Mine treasurer Ron McConaghy, at the main heading where those who go on underground tours will return to daylight.
By Jane Ross
WONTHAGGI’S State Coal Mine needs another $1 million if it is to compete as a tourist destination.
This is over and above the $3m already being spent to reopen the mine and build a new visitor centre.
Mine manager Braxton Laine, said an extra $1million would be “handy”.
Following intense lobbying from the Friends of the State Coal Mine and the State Mine 2009 working group, both the State and Federal governments each gave $1.5m to upgrade the facility and reopen the mine to tourists. It was closed in 2004 following legislative changes that impacted on its safety.
Friends’ treasurer Ron McConaghy, promised to turn up the funding heat on politicians, given that there are State and Federal elections next year.
“Once we open the mine again, it will be fantastic for Wonthaggi’s tourism,” said Mr Laine.
Underground tours will begin again on November 14, but may do so with conditions such as physical fitness requirements, until new passenger skips are available.
These are being made in Bendigo, together with the restoration of a Ruwolt winder that will pull the skips up and out through the main heading of the mine.
Work has just begun on a new building to protect the winder. It is due to be finished in six weeks.
And the removal of 160 tonnes of stone from the mine to accommodate the new skips has also started. With the help of a machine owned by Ian Lyons and enthusiastic voluntary labour, a day-long working bee took the required recess one metre into the mine tunnel.
Construction is yet to begin on the new visitor centre, which will supersede the current one. A master plan of the site in its new guise was released by consultants late last week.
Mr Laine said he expects the current visitor building, which includes a shop and theatrette, will be given over to an education hub.
He sees a large market for that.
“There’s a massive industrialisation story to be told.”
Coal mining, which founded the town of Wonthaggi 100 years ago, is now augmented by a wind farm and the desalination plant, all of which ties in to the climate change tale.
Mr Laine said great care has been taken to ensure that the systems put in place during the mine upgrade, “will carry on for an eternity”.
These include documentation of all safety aspects of the mine such as traceability of any timber that is put in there.
A lot of the work has been done by a volunteer crew, which has been undertaking underground maintenance and construction every Tuesday night for the past 25 years.
Mr Laine said that without that commitment and the extensive work by the friends’ and working groups, the mine would never have been able to have been reopened.
“It would have cost too much.”
Mr McConaghy and friends’ president Michelle Evans, attributed the willingness of volunteers to the pulling together that was necessary when Wonthaggi was founded the year after the mine opened in 2009. There were no facilities, there was the Depression, there were strikes.
The miners and their womenfolk developed a hospital, a union theatre, a pharmacy. The camaraderie and sense of purpose have carried on.
So much so, Ms Evans estimates Parks Victoria will need 13 full time staff to run the mine once the new visitor centre opens. Volunteers have done that, manning a shop and conducting tours, raising money, lobbying governments and attending working bees.
There’ll be more of these in the lead up to the mine reopening.
The friends’ group will celebrate its 25th anniversary at a lunch at the Wonthaggi Workmen’s Club in September. See story page 23.
Short URL: http://www.thestar.com.au/?p=57
Posted by 
