October 10, 2013
Australia

Tarkine mine, KI wind farm plans off to court

By Sean Ford | The Advocate | Oct. 10, 2013 | www.theadvocate.com.au

A Tarkine mine plan and the King Island wind farm proposal are headed for court on November 1.

First directions proceedings concerning both controversial projects are scheduled to be held before former federal Labor minister and now Federal Court Justice Duncan Kerr in Hobart that day.

The mining issue involves the Tarkine National Coalition (Save the Tarkine) seeking a judicial review of former Labor environment minister Mark Butler’s environmental approval of Venture Minerals’ planned Riley iron ore mine, near Tullah.

It is hoping to have the approval overturned, as was done by the court in Melbourne to federal approval of another Tarkine mine it opposes (Shree Minerals at Circular Head).

Mr Butler later re-approved the Shree project, which is now close to production-ready.

Venture aims to start extracting iron ore from Riley by the end of the year.

It said recently it would advise the market if legal proceedings relating to approvals had any material effect on its production schedule.

Such advice had not been issued at the time of writing yesterday.

The Shree proceedings led to a substantial delay in mine construction.

“We are still getting ourselves organised to start in the next few weeks,” a Venture spokesman said.

Tasmanian-based Shaw Contracting has been named as Venture’s mining contractor.

It is expected to allocate about 35 workers to the Riley project.

The King Island proceedings will involve the No TasWind Farm Group versus the Hydro.

No TasWind is the applicant.

Its arguments are expected to include that Hydro Tasmania allegedly broke a commitment to the island that it would not proceed to a feasibility study without the support of 60 per cent of residents in a survey.

The group argues 58.77 per cent of valid responses were in favour of going to the feasibility study.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/10/10/tarkine-mine-ki-wind-farm-plans-off-to-court/