Bathurst Community Climate Action Network

The Cadia open cut gold mine near Orange is a dizzyingly impressive 
hole in the ground. It's impossible to look down into it, with its 
tiny trucks crawling up the sides, without a sense of awe. Last week, 
the State Government said yes to an expansion of operations to the 
east of the existing site. At its peak, the new mine is expected to 
produce a billion dollars worth of gold and copper every year. That's 
a lot of money in anybody's books.

But the expanded mine comes amid continued disquiet about its impact 
on local water supplies. Local farmers – a tiny drop in the financial 
ocean when set beside the giant mine – are alarmed about the draw 
down effect on groundwater. While the company has named 16 properties 
likely to be affected and has offered compensation, farmers just 
outside the seven kilometre zone worry that they will also suffer. 
There are also fears about the mine's use of surface water in its 
operations, particularly if conditions continue to get hotter and 
drier. The expanded mine will require about 6 megalitres per day of 
additional water, an increase of about 12 per cent on its existing use.

As we know here in Bathurst, Cadia has long been eyeing off our 
relatively abundant water supply. Locals here in Bathurst continue to 
worry that if supplies in Orange dwindle, we will be asked to help 
out our neighbours – nothing wrong with that, except that this would 
be an indirect benefit to the Cadia mine. While Bathurst council has 
rejected this idea outright, the State Government's enthusiasm for 
Cadia could see our own wishes overruled in the interests of the 
wider economy.

In the short term, there can be no doubt that the world values gold 
and copper and that we're onto a very good thing. But over the long 
term, a new set of values – increasingly to be given monetary value – 
are emerging: water and food security and biodiversity. We have now 
said "yes" to Cadia but perhaps they should be pressed harder to give 
more to the environmental side of the ledger. What about making them 
fund wind power technology to be used in their own operations with 
side benefits for the local region? Yes, it would cost a lot, but 
they are making a lot.