Mining company to open up

MANTLE Mining will reveal its plans for the Mirboo North area at a public meeting in the town this Sunday.
The company holds coal exploration licences over the surrounds of Mirboo North and further.
Representatives from the company will attend a public meeting organised by Coal and CSG Free Mirboo North to explain the company’s intentions for its licences.
The meeting will be held this Sunday at 1pm at the Walter J Tuck Reserve in Mirboo North.
Mantle Mining chief executive officer Ian Kraemer said Mantle Mining is obliged to seek community consultation as part a requirement of the Mining Act.
“Consultation is the way to explain what we want to do, hear what all stakeholders think about it and then respond by considering those thoughts,” he said.
“We are required to consult with the community as part of the legal requirements of the Mining Act. Obviously it is in our best interests to generate a social licence to operate.”
Mantle Mining’s coal exploration licences include areas around Narracan, Delburn, Trafalgar East, Mirboo North, Boolarra, Budgeree, Traralgon South and as far east as Callignee and Carrajung.
“It’s a huge area that’s affected, consisting of highly productive farmland and remnant bushland, so we’ll see concerned people from all over the region attending the meeting to hear what Mantle Mining has in store for them,” group member Phil Piper said.
Mirboo North beef farmer Fergus O’Connor said he was shocked to learn exploration licences being given the nod over such valuable farmland.
“We are sitting on a jewel in the crown of agricultural land. Why would we want to wreck it? Three per cent of the nation’s arable land in Victoria produces 26 per cent of the nation’s food,” he said.
“We shouldn’t tamper with agriculture because it is so good.”
Recently, the Minister for Energy, Resources and Industry Lily D’Amborosio travelled to Mirboo North to consult with Coal and CSG Free Mirboo North about its ongoing lobbying to have these licences revoked.
The minister said she was not happy with the process of requesting exploration licences and that it was not the way these things should have been dealt with.
She will examine and overhaul the process of making application for a variety of licences.
“I have started an internal review; the regulator has to be modern and responsive. The process needs to be trusted and people need to have confidence in the system,” Ms D’Ambrosio said.
“The minister has no authority under the act to rescind or revoke exploration licences, however the granting of an exploration licence does not open the door to full mining licences.”
The public meeting will be an opportunity for the community to have its concerns addressed in a question and answer session with expert speakers, as well as the mining company.

Question and answer committee: Coal and CSG Free Mirboo North members Denyse Menzies, Suzanne Wightman and Marg Thomas have been instrumental in organising the upcoming public meeting with industry experts to discuss coal seam gas exploration in South Gippsland.

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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Oct 13 2015. Filed under Featured, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry