Toongi Mine

A rare earth mine at Toongi, 30km south of Dubbo has been approved and is waiting for funding to commence operations.

While Healthy Rivers Dubbo accepts the need to mine for critical minerals as a part of the rollout of renewables, we think that impacts of mining should be minimised as much as possible.

As the Toongi mine would be close to a creek that feeds into the Wambuul/Macquarie River upstream of Dubbo’s water supply, and is on top of an important reserve of groundwater, we are extremely concerned that the risks of water contamination are minimised.

The Toongi mine, shoud it be funded, will be procesing a lot of material on site and producing many tonnes of waste salt and toxic byproducts. Along with the radio active material that will be dug up with the minerals, all of this waste will be buried on site. There are currently no provisions for the mining company to monitor for leaks of toxic material into the ground water.

We are also concerned that the mining company has no plans to fill in the massive hole in the ground that would cover 40 hectares after they hve finished with the mine. We think they should fill in the hole and return the site to as close as original condition as possible.

Healthy Rivers Dubbo is asking that the Rehabilitation Management Plan requires the company to pay a bond:

1. for monitoring of the site at the same level as when the mine operational for 100 years after relinquishment of the project.
2. So that the 40 ha void be fully remediated after relinquishment of the project.