What we feared and prophesised has come to pass. Delta Gold, the owners of the cyanide leach gold mine at Timbarra, near Tenterfield NSW, have admitted that cyanide leaked into the Clarence River during last week's cyclone.

Not much they say, but how are we to ever know for sure because there was no independent testing or monitoring during or after the storm in which the Mine recorded 474 mm of rain on a site in 24 hours. The Timbarra Mine claimed to be designed for a maximum "one in 400 year 72 hour rain event" of 475 mm. Whatever that technological optimism means.

All night Thursday 1 February it rained flood rains camped 250 km away in the Tweed Valley, my mind was on Timbarra. On Friday morning after we had heard ABC radio news reports of a cyclone at Tenterfield, a call came in from Timbarra friend, Peter Pumpkin, that Nelson Creek, the tributary of the Clarence River that drains the plateau around the Timbarra Mine site, was in record flood and gushing sediment, a sign of massive run off from the Mine.

The Mine's lines were continuously engaged. Later we learned this was because the lines were down and communications were out for about 36 hours. We called Tenterfield Police and later they called us back to say officers had driven 30 km through rain and fallen trees to find the road cut by Nelson's Creek 600 meters from the Mine gate.

We rang the office of Harry Woods member for Grafton and Minister for Local Government. We rang the NSW Minister for Mines, the media - everyone we could think of. General alert.

We also rang the Northern Tablelands manager of the Environmental Protection Authority urging him to send an inspector. He had no one to send. Maybe next week the environment officer would be available, the receptionist said. Emergency plan, they had none.

So I went to see for myself. After being held up for 5 hours by flood waters pouring off Timbarra mountain and cutting the Bruxner Highway I got to the Mine gate at 12.30 am on Saturday morning 4 February. Nelson Creek was down to about 150 mm above the road.

In truth, driving in the darkness, rain and mist, through fallen trees and ruts and water across the road, I almost ran into the gates.

At a time when the Mine ought to have been floodlit to monitor water flows, it was in total darkness. Not only had it lost phone and road access, it had lost power too. Grid power and the emergency back up had both failed. No power means no pumps. But no  monitoring was happening. I reckon it will be revealed that the only person on site through the night of Friday 3 February of and Saturday 4 February was a single security and he was hostile. (On the back of his ute, the sign: "Shoot
ferals')

Between 8 and 9 am Saturday the Mine management arrived in four separate 4WD vehicles.

It was a panicked Mine manager who answered my demand to meet at the gate at 9.30 am. He was in denial and covering up about spills and refused me access to the site. But I walked the perimeter anyway and witnessed the gush of water still coming off the site. This was 36 hours after the cyclone had hit and it was still raining, light but persistent, the moonscape mine site covered in shifting cloud.

The cyanide pond was intact but the run off from the leach pads was huge and all the Mine management could do in their gloomy unlit prefab offices was take water samples and keep fingers crossed.

If the Mine had been working at the capacity for which Ross Mining had been granted government approval, the Clarence River would now be an eco-catastrophe on the scale of the Tizer/Danube spill, dead fish and poisoned water from Timbarra to Iluka/Yamba. And it would have taken at least 24 hours for the Mine to get the information out.

That such a large-scale disaster has been averted is because the Mine, under pressure from green activists and Native Title litigants, had been forced into a "care and maintenance" mode for the past 18 months. The mining and crushing operations have been on hold and the rock dust piles on the leach pads and the quantity of raw cyanide on the site, much reduced.

How ironic that the gracious and proper City of Grafton, home of the Member for Page, Ian Causley, who as NSW Minister for Mines signed the Timbarra Mine approval, should owe the health of its mighty River to the greenie ferals Mr Causley so much despises.

God moves in mysterious ways. And when it comes to storms on Timbarra sacred mountain, He/She moves with great power, revelation and excellent timing.

When the storm broke Mr Peter Ingham, the Operations Manager for Delta Gold's six or so cyanide heap leach gold mines in Australia, the Solomon Islands and Zimbabwe, happened to be on site investigating the Peter Hardwick evidence of leaks.

Nelson Creek was one meter above the road and rising when he left. It was touch and go getting out and he must have driven to Sydney seared by the experience.

I do not expect that it will take much arguing now to convince Delta Gold to close the Timbarra Mine and remove the poisons. Let the work begin on healing the site, compensating the injured and indicting the cyanide criminals who put the Clarence River at such risk.

Graeme Dunstan
5 February 2001