The Northern Land Council says NT traditional owners want to establish better guarantees for rehabilitation of failed mines like the Nathan River Resources project. (Supplied: Nathan River Resources)
The Northern Land Council (NLC) says Northern Territory traditional owners are considering requiring guarantees of mine rehabilitation before allowing new operations to start up.
It comes after an NLC-commissioned report found the $6.2 million security bond the NT government is holding to ensure rehabilitation of the collapsed Nathan River Resources mine will not be nearly enough.
The NT environment department says it is holding adequate funds to remediate the site, but the NLC is urging the government to reconsider how it calculates its mine bonds.
Northern Territory Indigenous traditional owners fed up with collapsed mining companies not being made to put enough money aside to clean up their operations are threatening to start negotiating rehabilitation guarantees as a condition of allowing new mines.
Northern Land Council (NLC) chief executive Yuseph Deen said traditional owners across the NT had been shocked to discover the Territory government was holding a $6.2 million rehabilitation security bond from the Nathan River Resources iron ore mine, which went into receivership owing $360 million in May.
He said a report the NLC had commissioned demonstrated that number would be "grossly inadequate" for the mine's rehabilitation.
"What you'll find is that most of the abandoned mining projects are on Aboriginal estates, so predominantly Aboriginal landowners miss out," he said.
Yuseph Deen says traditional owners are increasingly concerned about collapsed mines not being rehabilitated. (ABC News: James Elton)
"In this particular situation, where the mining company has gone into receivership, that means there is an opportunity cost, both economic and in terms of destruction of cultural sites.
The ABC has obtained a copy of the NLC-commissioned Nathan River Resources mine report, which estimates rehabilitating the operation would cost between $108 million and $1.1 billion.
The report estimates rehabilitation of the Nathan River Resources mine would cost much more than the amount being held by the NT government. (ABC News: Pete Garnish)
The report's author, Darwin environmental consultancy EcOz, said it used both the NT and NSW governments' mine security calculators to model the costs of either making the Nathan River Resources site safe while leaving waste rock dumps and mine pits in place, or completely rehabilitating the mine and its associated port loading and haul road infrastructure.
The company provided low, moderate and high monetary estimates for each option.
It estimated making the site safe following mining, while leaving the waste dump and pits in place, would cost between $108 million and $295 million, and that the cost of complete rehabilitation would be between $402 million and $1.1 billion.
