Accordingly, and per the 'Major and Minor Amendments Guideline, 1 the 'existing area' to be considered
by the Department when assessing the EA amendment application against criterion (f) is the combined
surface area previously disturbed or authorised to be disturbed by mining activities in the mining tenements which are now subject to the EA. 2
An assessment of areas previously disturbed by mining activities has been undertaken and presented
in Figure 10. A calculation of the total area disturbed through previous mining activities was undertaken
by using a combination of field verification and high quality satellite imagery to create a polygon and
associated polylines covering access tracks. Hundreds of nodes were made that traced visible portions
of the site that have been subject to mining activities. The total area of visible disturbance was calculated
to be 459.7 ha, of which 448 ha is within the 645.4 ha of areas within Heritage Mineral's mining leases
with approved surface rights.
The total footprint of the Upper Mundic Gully TSF is 43.4ha of which 11.97 ha is already occupied with
the western dump. As such, the total new disturbance as a result of this proposed amendment is
31.46ha, which represents an increase to the surface area impacted by mining activities within the
mining leases of 4.9%, and an increase to the total surface area historically disturbed by mining of
6.84%.
1 See, in particular, Example 16 in the Guideline. 2 For clarity, we confirm that the percentage increase in surface area for the EA amendment application has been calculated against visible surface area disturbance, and not against the total area of the mining leases (approximately 645.42 ha) or the total area in the mining leases with approved surface rights under the MR Act
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Wulguru Technical Services Pty Ltd – Supporting Information Report
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