Friday, 19 January, 2007

ABC NT Local News

Landholders at Batchelor, south of Darwin, are calling on Compass Resources to explain how it will manage water when its new oxide mine opens later this year.

Melon grower David Thompson says he needs to pump underground water for at least six hours a day to keep his crops alive.

But he says it is not clear whether the new mine next door will threaten his access to water.

"We have been here 25 years and we are right next to the mine, it's just over the fence," he said.

"It's a 47 hectare property and we are vulnerable because we need the water.

"If they take our water we are just, we can't do nothing and to go and sue them, we haven't got the money to do it anyway - we just don't know what to do."

Mr Thompson says previous mining operations have set a worrying precedent for water resources in the region.

He was forced to farm elsewhere while the Woodcutters lead and zinc mine was operating in the 1990s.

He says the mine's demand for water reduced the recharge of bores and changed the direction of water flow underground.

"The first year we were here we had a bore put in, we had no worries about water, but soon as Woodcutters opened up we had trouble for all the time they were open," he said.

"And when they closed again we had no trouble with water, we had all our water back and all those springs around those areas used to dry up in the dry season, whereas before they they never dried up."