Aborigines fear sting of the serpent's tail if mining goes ahead

SYDNEY - A remote Aboriginal community is fighting to stop an international mining giant from developing a massive open-cut mine amid the crocodile-infested swamps and billabongs of northern Australia.

Aborigines fear an environmental catastrophe if Swiss firm Xstrata is given permission to divert the flood-prone McArthur River by 5km in order to make way for a lead and zinc mine. Surrounding creeks would be diverted an additional 3km.

The Gudanji tribe say the river is bound up with the spirit of a rainbow serpent from the ancient Dreamtime era, when mythical beings roamed the continent, and has deep spiritual significance. Upsetting the rainbow serpent, they fear, will bring storms, cyclones and disaster.

Xstrata says that unless it can convert its existing, decade-old underground mine into an open-cut operation, it will have to withdraw from the area, compromising 3 per cent of the world's zinc reserves.

Nearly 300 employees would lose their jobs.

China's voracious appetite for raw materials has sent the price of zinc soaring from US$700 ($1060) a tonne three years ago to US$3300 a tonne, and mining companies like Xstrata are scrambling to exploit new reserves.

The firm insists the environmental concerns of the Northern Territory Government have been fully addressed.

The A$86 million mine, 900km south-east of Darwin, will be surrounded by a 14m-high wall.

"There would have to be a flood many times greater than in the past to go over the top of the wall," general manager Brian Hearne said yesterday.

"We're confident there'll be no issues with flooding."

But environmentalists insist pollution is still highly likely, with heavy metal contamination in the river system threatening rare wildlife such as turtles and dugongs and devastating barramundi and prawn fisheries.

"The McArthur is a very large tropical river with an annual discharge equal to seven or eight times the volume of Sydney Harbour," said Dr Stuart Blanch of WWF-Australia. "A river like this has never been diverted before in Australia. It's a gamble, an experiment without precedent. These tropical rivers are very complex - it's not like building a cement canal to drain stormwater in a city."

WWF-Australia is concerned that a tailings dam which Xstrata intends to build to collect waste material from the mine could be inundated by flood waters. The area was subjected to massive flooding in 2001.

Xstrata's first application to establish the mine was refused by the Northern Territory Government in February when an independent report found there was a danger the diverted river could overspill its banks during heavy rain.

The Northern Land Council, which represents Aborigines in the region, says the project should only go ahead if Xstrata is made to pay a bond of A$50 million-$100 million to ensure that any environmental damage can be rectified. Local people were unlikely to benefit financially from the project under its existing terms, chief executive Norman Fry said.

A decision on whether the mine can go ahead will be made by Northern Territory Mines Minister Chris Natt in the next few weeks.