Lightning Ridge inspectors show encouraging results

The concerted campaign by the Department of Primary Industries - Mineral Resources to improve the environment around the Lightning Ridge opal fields is paying dividends.

Since the campaign began in 2002 almost 3,000 inspections, which focus on the environmental and safety condition of individual claims, have been carried out including 410 this year.

Given there are currently almost 5,000 registered claims, this represents a significant level of assessment.

According to Deputy Director General of DPI Mineral Resources, Alan Coutts, a recent review of sweeps shows positive outcomes.

“When the inspections were first carried out in 2002, 77% of claims incurred violations, however this year that figure has dropped to 34%”.

“The September sweep, which will be the last for this year, achieved the best results to date. It was encouraging to see a high level of compliance with only 16% being non compliant in these latest inspections” said Mr Coutts.

“In 2002 the majority of infringements were on safety issues however, as that situation has now greatly improved, the more recent focus has been on environmental issues such as excessive vegetation clearance and general rehabilitation of claims.

When the sweeps are carried out officers from the Department visit claims, undertake inspections and issue miners directions where improvements need to be carried out.

“This has been an ongoing campaign by this Department to raise environmental and safety standards in line with community expectations and other areas of the State’s mining industry”, said Mr Coutts.

"There are encouraging signs that miners are becoming more diligent by taking care of the environment and ensuring their claims are safe. Overall there has been a positive response to the Department’s campaign, which is complimented by the efforts of the Lightning Ridge Miners Associations” he added.

The aim of the campaign is to encourage Lightning Ridge miners to improve their safety conditions and minimize the impact on the local environment by managing the site from the start of operations through to final rehabilitation.

However, despite the encouraging trends, Mr Coutts says there are still a few claimholders who are not complying with repeated directions.

“While these are certainly in the minority the Department will seriously consider penalties against these claimholders including the cancellation of their claims”, he said.

This year’s inspections focussed on revisiting claims where directions have been ignored and where miners have failed second inspections.