LAKE COWAL CAMPAIGN
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR ACTION KIT
Sample Letters (submit yours)If you want to take some action to protect Lake Cowal and save the Lachlan River system's water, here are some points you can make in a Letter to the Editor or to NSW politicians.
Pick the points that you feel most passionate about and then write a brief letter in your own words. Please keep letters to 100-200 words at most if you wish it to be printed in its entirety. You could also write your letter as an email and then send it to a newspaper near you. (Check online versions of newspapers to find postal and email addresses).
* I am concerned about the destruction of an Aboriginal sacred place.
Lake Cowal/The Bland is a very important sacred region for the Aboriginal Traditional Owners and is often called "the Heartland of the Wiradjuri Nation". Wiradjuri Traditional Owners say their people have been there since "time immemorial". They have continuing connection to Lake Cowal country despite the deprivations thousands of Wiradjuri suffered through being driven off their land, losing traditional food sources, introduced diseases, and massacres.
When explorers first came to the Lake Cowal region in the early 1800s, they recorded Aborigines of "tribal proportions" who were using the area for campsites and ceremonies. The lake remains a sacred sanctuary to the traditional Wiradjuri. There are thousands of artefacts, including increasingly rare Aboriginal scarred trees, at and nearby Lake Cowal that are testimony to lengthy Aboriginal habitation of the area.
Barrick Gold has not properly consulted the Aboriginal traditional owners, with blood ties to the region, who have declared their opposition to the Lake Cowal gold mine. The mine has already destroyed parts of this Aboriginal Sacred Site as well as Aboriginal artefacts, scarred trees and other cultural objects. Cultural heritage like this that is destroyed can never be replaced.
* I am concerned about the destruction of a high conservation wetland and the many endangered and vulnerable native birds, wildlife and plants.
Lake Cowal is included in the Register of the National Estate and the Directory of Important Wetlands of Australia . The National Trust of Australia (NSW) has listed Lake Cowal as a "Landscape Conservation Area". Australian and New South Wales Government departments and agencies suggested around 10 years ago that the Lake Cowal region should be considered for listing under the Ramsar Convention as a Wetland of International Importance.
According to the NSW Department of Natural Resources, it is estimated that Australia-wide "approximately 50% of wetlands have been lost since European settlement". Located in the Murray-Darling Basin, Lake Cowal, part of the Lake Cowal-Wilbertroy Wetlands is another wetland under threat. While it is naturally full an average of seven years out of 10 and has been known to be dry for up to 30 years, the lake is also affected by water diversion. Up to 3650 megalitres of water per year, taken from the Lachlan River and local groundwater for the gold mine, also puts enormous pressures on the lake's ecosystem.
* I am concerned about the transportation of cyanide from Gladstone, Queensland to Lake Cowal.
Cyanide used at the Lake Cowal mine is railed from Gladstone in Queensland to Chullora in Sydney. It is then trucked from Chullora to Parramatta before it is railed to Dubbo. From Dubbo it is trucked to the mine 47 kms from West Wyalong. With 6000 tonnes of cyanide travelling this route every year there is a grave danger of a poisonous spill from a train or truck accident on a major highway.
In 1992 a train carrying cyanide pellets derailed at Condobolin, threatening the safety of the whole town. The New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority's own figures suggest that up to 10 per cent of trucks are involved in a mishap in any given year.
* I am concerned about the use of cyanide at Lake Cowal and its impact on fish, birdlife and humans.
Cyanide is lethal. One teaspoon of a 2 per cent solution can kill an adult human. Cyanide is even more toxic to aquatic biota than to birds. Contrary to gold mining industry claims, cyanide leaks and spills are commonplace in the industry. These mining accidents have poisoned entire river systems and have devastating impacts on bird life. Cyanide does not necessarily break down rapidly into safe chemicals and many potential breakdown products are about as lethal as cyanide itself.
A spill of wastewater containing cyanide, arsenic and potentially other toxins could severely damage the entire Cowal wetland and related waterways including the Murray River System that is already over-stressed by lack of environmental flows, salt, nitrogen, acidity and agricultural chemicals. As well as the risk of killing fish, birdlife and farm stock, toxins from the mine could jeopardise groundwater, and river water supplies as well as enter the food chain. Although the area is in drought, very large floods can occur in the Central West. Despite the bund wall separating the mine from the lake, many locals believe that the Lake Cowal gold mine is a disaster waiting to happen should there ever be a big flood or an earthquake. (The lake is situated in a moderate earthquake zone).
* Barrick Gold is a big, bad corporation!
This is the same company that wants to move three glaciers at Pascua Lama in Chile to mine the gold beneath! What's that going to do for the local people's water supplies, let alone for global warming?This is the same company that bought out Vancouver-based Sutton Resources Ltd in 1999. In 1996 Sutton drove out between 30 000 and 400 000 local miners from the Bulyanhulu gold field in Tanzania. During the process bulldozers allegedly buried 52 people alive. Barrick steadfastly denies allegations that Sutton or Barrick were involved in this incident.
For more on Barrick's activities around the world Google "Barrick Gold" and see www.corpwatch.org
* I am concerned about the huge amount of water that is being used to mine gold at Lake Cowal in drought-stricken New South Wales.
While the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that in 2005 the mining as an industry consumed about 2.2 per cent of Australia's water, one of the issues scientists have raised is how mines use local water intensively and can substantially affect local supplies. The use of water at the Cadia gold mine at Orange, NSW is one example. Barrick uses between 10 and 15 megalitres of water per day at its Lake Cowal gold mine. That's 3650 megalitres in one year. That's also enough water for a whole small city. (This is true for Lismore, NSW; how about where you live?)
In October 2006, a 30-metre drop in local groundwater from which the Lake Cowal mine was taking its water, had up to 80 landholders anxiously watching their water supplies for domestic, stock and agricultural uses. The Central-West is still in the grip of the worst drought in recorded history. Earlier this year, however, Barrick did a deal with the local irrigation company to supply the Lake Cowal gold mine with up to 3500 megalitres of water per year from the Lachlan River, part of the Murray-Darling Basin river system. How sustainable is using ground and river water for a gold mine, when gold is not even a necessity and the water in our food baskets like the Central-West is becoming scarce?
* I am concerned about waste rock, arsenic seepage, other toxins that are present at Lake Cowal.
Heavy metals such as arsenic, zinc, cadmium and lead from the Lake Cowal gold mine could enter soil and waterways. Arsenic levels are high in the Lake Cowal ore body. If arsenic were to seep into the water system, a situation could occur similar to that in Bangladesh where people contracted skin cancer by drinking arsenic-laced water from wells.
Dr Barry Noller, Deputy Director of the National Research Center for Environmental Toxicology, states in Cowal Gold Project: Comments on the Environmental Impact Statement : "Data for trace elements in mine waste rock is not given, although it is indicated that arsenic levels are high. This data should be made public. Waste rock emplacement is close to Lake Cowal and seepage may reach Lake Cowal." Noller concludes that, "The role and impact of heavy metals in Lake Cowal, which may be associated with natural mineralization, is not understood. As the waste rock has the potential to transfer heavy metals to the lake via seepage, these processes need to be understood."
You may also want to write to: Premier Morris Iemma; the Minister for Planning, Frank Sartor and the Minister for the Climate Change, the Environment and Water, Phil Koperberg at Parliament House, Macquarie Street, Sydney 2000 -- to ask them to put an immediate halt to the Lake Cowal gold mine.
Updated 29 October 2007
SAMPLESsubmitted by Angela Lautenbacher
Letter To the Editor
Re: Lake Cowal Gold Mine Project.
26 April 2006How many of us out there are aware that the gold jewellery that we buy and wear as a sign of our status, beauty and wealth, is encouraging companies like "Barrick Gold", to continue the destruction of natural habitats of cultural, national and international significance?
Without heed to the outcry from environmental groups and Aboriginal traditional owners from the region, Barrick gold have pushed forward with the proposed mine. Their plans are to set up a cyanide leach pad on site at Lake Cowal, as a means to extract the gold from the ground. The only barrier between the lake and the open pit would be an earth wall. A spill of wastewater containing cyanide, arsenic and potentially other toxins could severely damage the entire Cowal wetland and related waterways.
A shocking 89% of Australia's wetland areas have been destroyed over the last century! With planetary health as it stands shouldn't the global community be promoting conservation and repair of these wetland habitats rather than assisting in their destruction?
Submitted by Graeme Dunstan
Peacebus.com/CyanideWatchMay 3, 2006
Barrick pours gold at Lake Cowal and future generations weep.
Future generations of frogs and fishes, yabbies and wading birds, ducks and wallabies, and humans too, is who I am talking about and they weep for the destruction the gold miners bring upon the land and the toxic legacy of vast artifical lakes of poisoned water that will be left behind; still toxic when all memory of Barrick and its profits are forgotten.
And all for what? The transient greed of a few far away shareholders and some dead end local jobs.
The prosperity promised by Barrick Gold mine is a monstrous lie, as much a corruption of mind as it is of good government.
Water more precious than gold.
Graeme Dunstan
Peacebus.com/CyanideWatch