Vol. No. Vol. 2618No. 1127
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Wednesday, January 13, 13, 2023 2016 Wednesday, September
PROUD SUPPORTERS: Sophie Paterson, Maggie Heinrich and Montana Shrive cheer on Harrow-Balmoral at the 2023 Horsham District Football Netball League grand final on Saturday. The Southern Roos went on to claim the senior football premiership, while Edenhope-Apsley was A Grade netball premier. Reports and pictures, pages 46-49. Picture: PAUL CARRACHER
Mineral momentum T
BY ABBY WALTER
he Wimmera is situated on a significant band of mineral sands and as exploration increases to assess the viability of the resource, a Wimmera leader says there must be balance between community benefit and building the industry.
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Exploration companies Oro Plata and ACDC Metals are working together to begin exploration near Gymbowen and Harrow. It comes as the public hearing for WIM Resource’s proposed Avonbank Mineral Sands Project, near Horsham, closed last month. If the Avonbank project gains required approvals, construction could begin from late 2024. Astron’s Donald Mineral Sands
project, near Minyip, is also waiting for approval, expected by year’s end, based on a definitive feasibility study released in May. Wimmera Southern Mallee Development chief executive Chris Sounness said mining projects in the region continued to advance. “If ACDC Metals finds the right product in terms of quality and quantity, it reinforces the resources we have in the region,” he said. “That is great because as the industry grows, so does our knowledge, excellence and capacity in that space.” Mr Sounness said there were, however, challenges with any change in the region. “Transitioning from a traditional agriculture landscape to diversifying land use can be challenging,” he said. “Things will change and we need
to ensure the community is better off for those changes and individuals are fairly compensated. “There are great examples across the country of communities and individuals being more resilient and stronger because of change – but change is always hard.” The State Government accepted two Oro Plata exploration license applications for the Wimmera in July. Oro Plata director Michael Hudson said mineral exploration was different to mining. “Exploration is the science of finding where to look and has low impact over large areas, whereas mining is an engineering process to extract what may be found and is high impact in small areas,” he said. “Our current work is all exploration, which initially means looking
at work previously done, understanding it and putting it into modern-day thinking and computing software to see what opportunities may exist or if nothing more is required.” Mr Hudson said a license did not grant exploration companies rights to enter private properties. “If we thought there were opportunities to continue to explore, once we had looked at past work, we would test on roadside verges first, because that is Crown land and you can cover large areas without focusing too quickly,” he said. “But if there are areas between road verges, then we would start to negotiate land access individually with landholders to see what we could do.” Continued page 9
Wimmera league grand final previews and vote count – pages 52-57 Phone: 03 5382 1351 Read it online: www.theweeklyadvertiser.com.au
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