• Development within the Mount Morgan mine precinct area is limited to mining activities or tourist
related activities and facilities associated with former mining activities; and
• Development addresses natural and environmental constraints, environmental nuisances and
impacts on the surrounding community including scenic amenity.
Central Queensland Regional Plan 2013
The Central Queensland Regional Plan 2013 contemplates the ongoing outcome of the land as an
abandoned mine managed by the State, with the possibility of ancillary tourism activities. The plan
states the following in relation to the site:
In relation to mine site rehabilitation, the state government is working to improve water quality in the Dee River through its ongoing program to rehabilitate the abandoned Mount Morgan Mine site. The state took over management of the Mount Morgan Mine in 1993 after operations ceased in November 1990. The state accepted responsibility when the tenure was relinquished. The state is investing $470 000 in equipment upgrades as well as installing three new evaporators for $1.2 million for site rehabilitation. This equipment will help accelerate the lowering of water levels in the open cut mine pit, further reducing the likelihood of an uncontrolled discharge of pit water into the Dee River, and also reducing site seepage. The state government has also increased its water quality monitoring and sediment testing activities downstream of the Mount Morgan mine site to monitor and assess potential risks to water quality for livestock or irrigated crops. Regular monitoring of the surface and ground water along the Dee River is being undertaken up to 140 km downstream of the mine site.
State Government Plans and Policies
The Queensland Government's Abandoned Mines Management Policy, which guides the State's current and future activities on the site, has the following outcomes:
• Preventing potential exposure of the surrounding community to hazards on an abandoned mine
site by removing or mitigating hazards;
• Implementing control measures to limit the level of adverse impacts to the surrounding and
downstream environments;
• Minimising the ongoing maintenance and monitoring requirements for a site—this includes
geotechnical and geochemical stability; and
• Investigating opportunities to commercialise abandoned mines and/or repurpose the land for a
future appropriate use, considering the economic, community, cultural, and conservation values
and constraints of the site.
Those aims are also expressed in the 2022 Queensland Resources Industry Development Plan. That
plan outlines the State's goals to develop principles, pilots and research and development to support
the re-commercialisation, and where appropriate, repurposing, of abandoned mines, provided it is in
the public benefit and delivers net environmental benefit. Heritage Minerals' reprocessing activities at
the site, and its return of those areas to the State as a 'land management monitoring and maintenance
of rehabilitated areas' for its continued management, will reduce the State's rehabilitation burden and
achieve a net environmental benefit.
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Wulguru Technical Services Pty Ltd – Supporting Information to Amend an Environmental Authority
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