Government, council and mine...

THE Queensland Government has refused to conduct extensive soil and
water testing in Mount Isa despite its own study confirming that 11
per cent of children in the town have dangerously high levels of lead
in their blood.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23744269-23289,00.html

In the northwest Queensland town of Mount Isa, where the land may be
parched but the community is swimming in riches from the mining boom,
the problem is that nobody seems to want to get to the heart of why
its children are sick.

The Queensland Government study released yesterday confirmed that 11
per cent of the town's children had unsafe lead levels. It wasn't the
first such study. A similar blood screening program in 1990-92 found
that 36per cent of the children sampled had lead poisoning.

The problem is that lead poisoning in children usually becomes a
problem only later in life, with symptoms such as learning and
behaviour difficulties. Only in extreme cases - such as local girl
Stella Hare, 6, who recorded a blood lead level almost twice the safe
limit and is just 15kg - do the brutal effects of the problem become
undeniably real.

Despite there being an obvious problem, neither Xstrata (previously Mt
Isa Mines), the city council nor the Queensland Government seems
terribly keen to do anything about it. Why? The simple answer is
money....

On Wednesday, the Government enacted legislation repealing decades-old
laws that excused Xstrata from meeting the same emissions standards as
1200 other mining operations in Queensland. It was about time.

Michael McKenna – The Australian, May 23, 2008

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23744270-23289,00.html

Xstrata's Mount Isa copper mine was named the country's biggest
polluter in the annual National Pollutant Inventory data released last
week. Figures for 2006-7 show the mine ranks highest in the country
for zinc, sulphur dioxide, lead, copper, cadmium, arsenic and antimony
emissions. The figures measure soil and water as well as airborne
emissions.

Clive Sam, a Cultural Ranger for the Kalkadoon Tribal Council, is
upset by the pollution. "Our country has been just destroyed by
greed," he says. "It makes me feel terrible... It's become hard for us
to get our bush medicines - some days it can even be hard to breathe."
He says his kids were fine when they lived in Brisbane for several
years, but "the moment we move back here they play in the dirt here
and they break out in sores".

Jennifer Mills - New Matilda, 10 Apr 2008

http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/04/09/welcome-xstrata-country