The Open cut the source of all the pollution problems it is much a mile wide and nearly a mile deep once trucks could turn around down the bottom and there was a tea room there.

 The pit is made  of copper and Iron pyrites ore which was low value low gold content and at dept levels arsenic and cyanide. The ore reacts with water and forms a low grade sulphuric acid which make's other heavy metals dissolve and become soluble, cadmium arsenic and cyanide all end up being sulphate type chemicals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdyfnjf3pvI&sns=fb

Video of mine working 1955

. Cyanide is usually destroyed by sunlight probably the cause of the acrid smell of the water. Birds might avoid it because of that as do most animals I am sure but birds that might land on it during a storm or night when air is dense might not fly of.Once I heard they left an aluminium  boat in it over night only to find it severely acid eaten the next day. The rain run off if flood times is more than the pit can handle and there are breaches lucky not large one's yet the drying of the watery the sprays might just evaporate the rain runoff from one wet season.

The trees along the edge of the cut even at a distance are all dead and this was before the sprays were put in place.

Mine rehabilitation cost some 4 million dollars for liming the water with the little treatment plant one can see in the distance the other side in the above picture. now the sprays drying the water would use immense amount of electricity paid by the taxpayer as the previous mine owners never had enough money invested to provide clean up.  It would be stupid economically to start another mine in the tailing and spring creek area  and create another pit. nce operating the tailing would run out and the land under lease around Baree and spring creek area is rumoured another open cut. Where would they get the water from to operate the mine obvious the pit water can't be used unless treated and town dam only can provide the town. the immense amounts of dust from machinery would have to be doused by water trucks constantly town is only a kilometre away and with out the mine the dust problem is bad in the house and around.

 The sprays on a hot day seem to leave a permanent haze around the mine area and town this in turn get locked in in the night by some thermal like blanket. There should be some pollution monitoring especially in the lower area of town where there is no breeze to clear the air. 

In 2003 one was walking the river to see what the recent flooding had exposed after washing the majority of the Yellow Cyanide waste away living in Charters  Towers back in the late 70 one got to know a great deal about Cyanide waste heaps so for the department of the environment to say this is not the same substance is just telling lies. It had revealed a saturated area of about 1-2 mtres of saturated soil and rock of metallic mercury . One did get the EPA people to come examine the site and they did still find traces of the mercury I couldn't recover with my eyedropper.One of my friends knew a guy up the mine and he was told also at another date to go down and clean the spot  because the EPA was coming out again this dude told my friend that the knight fella had been down the river and looks like he had just tossed mercury everywhere. I thought about this for a while and realised that mercury does not stay on the surface unless the ground is saturated as with the Bouldercombe mine when they spilt 44 gallon drum on the ground it will was absorbed by the ground before much could be picked up then hugh parts of the hill was removed and the mine closed.

 

The frog was burnt by the waste before it could get across to the water that is toxic and would have killed it anyway.

The Cyanide waste was very thick among the rocks down from the Welfare building across from the old once Power Station converted to Assay buildings one has the suspicion that it seeped down the cracks in the rocks under the sand to the centre of the river to be pushed up by the pressure of the water each time the river flooded, as it receded as the river went down. As it is a volatile substance that evaporates at 14o C  also makes it hard to find on any summer day and walking over the site could and has happened with me getting a dose of extreme diarrhea on numerous occasions.

These rocks up stream from the old weir is the area of the Mercury occurrence

One has been there again in the next flooding event  and there was still  mercury but the flood waters were going over the area and the beads of Mercury was breaking up into little white dots and washing away. 

For mercury to be on the surface like this must mean the ground is saturated with it , mercury that the mine spilt at Bouldercombe all sunk into the ground straight away and the side of the hill had to be removed and the mine was closed.
One had many a tweet to Premier Bligh about this situation but little was gained by the wasted time.
 Margaret Strelow wanted me to get them certificates to say the chemicals in the pile were hazardous . I tried to get her to get some one to collect the mercury and other contaminants i got from the other side of the river as I am sure if she read wikipedia she would find mercury a hazard but still she wanted a certificate . I don't  want to be forever in charge of such poison high in sealed containers in my garage just not right it is not my responsibility to look after such crap. One could not leave it in the river at the time the flooding water was breaking it into little white dots and taking it away. The EPA guy when it was first evident  did take a small amount but wouldn't take it all either.

2017

 One can look down at the Mercury exposure area from this mullock heap of waste.

I had the council to visit the lead oxide and sulphur cyanide heap they were a bit concerned it might wash down to end up in the Rockhampton weir with a severe flood. Little do they understand the meaning of toxicity of lead oxide. One did find a considerable amount of asbestos gloves at time when digging the crap and had to go home and practice coughing and lung ventilation to clean the lungs a bit. It was a place one could only go in the cool of the day winter or raining was best with protective clothing all over the acid would eat the hands with out the heavy rubber gloves. once getting a lot of the good antique's one has never really returned even though I lost a gold ring some where at the site #stuffit.

Severe flooding from cyclone Marsha only took away more yellow cake sulphates and most likely leached lots of soluble lead oxide out of the heap into the river system adding to the hazards the animal life already has to put up with in the system.

 Ducks do arrive after floods maybe the water is much less salty than before but it surly doesn't look it how many might survive to reach adult could be questionable.

This is a shame of the Government system be it Local and State this building is that full of smashed to dust fibro sort of material  once run in during a hail storm but quickly run out seeing the fine dist that was inside by the shovel load it is situated near the Swimming pool and the other side is a childcare  centre . There areas near the river seem to very windy turbulent places one would think the fibre would travel. The School of arts building had plastic around it to clean up the asbestos there maybe because it was a main street and they did want to least look being some sort of protective in the public arena.

 One has mercury bottle lid with catgut and the old centrifuge has embedded mercury they were excavated out of the heap which the Mines Department assured me was not toxic though one had to wear protective clothing and long thick rubber gloves to dig the sulphur type mix it was that acidic one could never go near the area in the middle of a winters day never in summer best when raining to wash the acid that seemed to eat into  the skin at every chance . One carried clean water for washing hands and flushing mouth out and practiced coughing routines with exhalants to clean the lungs of any possible intoxication as the acid had eaten items of furnace glass and it is harder than normal glass so it was realized to me as being nearly as strong as hydrofluoric acid.

Most of the river sides from as far back as the end of the newman oval all the mine side of the river has sloping grooved fault rock which only seems to appear on the opposite side near the old weir

One is not sure most animals found dead were around the mercury area but it usually at low levels in the cracks of rocks and only pushed to the surface during  cool temperature flood events, one Has found a rabbit dead on the yellowash futher down the river near the railway bridge for the tunnel. Most of the yellow wast was taken by two lots of severe flooding so is slowly on it's way top rockhampton drinking supply some might have got there in the flood event itself one seen the waters power it took logs like match sticks

 The waste is up river from the mine dump area but now with severe floods it to has mostly been washed away

This area of waste near bridge and extend area around the palms is still there just been covered up now by contractors to make look nice for the council.

 The cane grass down near the bridge seem to have sread from there havn't seen it further up stream Council used to come slash it once then poison wtih a pink powder but they never killed it all now clumps have washed down stream and will choke the river in some area's

 An area of it just down stream has not been there that long recent fire didn't even touch it

Castor oil plant another noxious weed that  seem to get out of control in the clean water area of the Dee though it did grow on the acid heap it is not so prevalent in the salty water area's of the river. there is many other weeds around like lantana that grow out of control in good seasons one area in spring creek that was there a few years back now stops me venturing up the creek exploring .

The Black Cockatoo a shyer species than the white one which invades  tree's in the suburbs live on Wattles and Gums mainly along the hill sides of the overburden from old mining activities, with the mine supposed to be starting in 2016 most of the habitat will be mined or degraded with lead dust from vehicle traffic.

 Black cockatoos are  a regular visitors to eat the wattle seed of the trees that now grow on the tailing heaps they like to stay away from the one near town in the day time but do venture near the river  tree's at night.

Down in the Dee where the clean from town way hits the mine water sometime one might see a few odd fish but they don't seem to be as many as upstream so one would guess they eventually would die from the excess salt . The open cut leaks out from under the overburden into the bores and river right around the streams up around Walter hall way. 

 The Cockatoos feed on the wattle tree's on the side of those hills of waste material from first mining.

One day of some trail mining venture the trucks going past the oval area road every 20 minutes had a lot of dust stired up by afternoon the wind carried it high into the thermals to be settled around town.

Before

after

Before the tree where my dog and I would rest and do some meditation in the activity of keeping the body and mind mobile

  After was sheer disappointment all out tree's we ventured fro the reason of seed or shade had been decimated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr3XhHA8ufg&feature=youtu.be

Memories of Buffy dog

Cyclones have never been part of mt morgans environment in the past and the amount of trees in this position just means an extinction of species over time.

 My Buffy dog has bad aggressive mastitis  I am sure she got this because of my habit of taking her to the lead oxide heap to sit and wait while I collected crucibles and other antique's.she had a set of pups at the time and aborted most in some green slime and the other's died not long after from her lack of milk one was slow to realize she wasn't giving them enough to eat and my dropper feeding failed to save them one does feel such a failure sometimes. One should have crowdfunded or something like that but as I give monthly to feed some hungry children around the world one has to choose between the two situations. Life is very difficult to make the right decision sometimes and gets so disappointed when situation look like disaster. I thought I could control it with massage and some antibiotics but it has seem to get out of control now I resort to massage with ice pack especially in the heat of the day. Too have it removed would be detrimental to her and being 17 years of age now she probably wouldn't heal one can only give palliative care and make her dying days easy, she has out lived all her brothers and sisters  one did sell a fair few for a while before the Liberal government got in. Now money is more important for the extra on food and other services items such as antiques and leaf of my Neem tree's which i had numerous sales for  there while Labor run the show all died with a Rabbott Abbott government.

The mine came and cleaned the majority of the cyanide from the river a few years back but in doing so destabilised the whole river tree's collapse the town  railway bridge was undermined by erosion and had to be destroyed. They didn't understand about the gravity of removing 2 mtres of overburden

Acacia aulacarpa the main food for Cockatoos even up around the hills on the opposite side of town above the cemetery area have all got the laid back feeling after Cyclone Marsha

flooding from such events is not a wanted situation.

 There are numerous bird's that rely on the bush around town staying a bit pristine and not covered with a layer of dust full of heavy metals.

My personal view of the Dee river close to the old Assay office. 

Support these at least with a vote in the Senate 
Lead, arsenic, cadmium: exposure linked to students' low grades in study http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4325619.htm … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … @amworldtodaypm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-19/taxpayers-may-foot-bill-for-mine-rehabilitation/6787954

mystorybloggs.blogspot.com/2015/08/blogg-history.html?spref=tw … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …