Since mining began in the Northern Territory with the 1870s gold rush, there has been little in the way of rehabilitation requirements. The small scale of early mining operations and the speed with which operators moved on to other areas led to the abandonment of many mine sites. Dangerous pits and shafts, waste rock dumps and poisonous tailings deposits can be found at many former mining sites in the Northern Territory.
In some areas there has been an effort to rehabilitate sites. For instance in the South Alligator Valley within Kakadu National Park the Federal Government is currently undertaking an expensive rehabilitation program to remove the hazards of abandoned uranium mines at El Sherana, South Alligator, Coronation Hill and other sites. These rehabilitation efforts have been publicly funded as many of the companies involved in mining efforts no longer exist and in some cases the Commonwealth was one of the proponents.
"The Rum Jungle Mine in the Northern Territory, for example, released 130 tonnes of copper, 100 tonnes of manganese, 40 tonnes of zinc and 13,000 tonnes of sulfate into the Finnis River in one year." (Australia, State of the Environment, 1996, Department of Environment, Sport and Territories, 4-22)
Rum Jungle uranium mine near Batchelor provided the impetus for public concern about the impacts of abandoned mines. Rum Jungle was mined between 1954 and 1971 by CRA (Rio Tinto's predecessor) and the Commonwealth. For much of the mine's life tailings were deposited directly into the Finnis River system. On completion of mining no rehabilitation efforts were conducted. CRA and RTZ (now Rio Tinto) consistently refused to contribute any funds towards rehabilitation of the Rum Jungle site.
An initial attempt to clean up Rum Jungle was made in 1977, which led to the setting up of a working group to examine more comprehensive rehabilitation. A $16.2 million Commonwealth-funded program got under way in 1983 to remove heavy metals and neutralise the tailings. A supplementary $1.8 million program to improve Rum Jungle Creek South waste dumps was undertaken in 1990.http://www.sea-us.org.au/oldmines/rumjungle.html
Major environmental problems remain on site at Rum Jungle with serious acid drainage problems emerging. In 2001 the lease area is yet to be returned to traditional owners. Rum Jungle prompted regulators to at least publicly state the need for mining companies to meet their rehabilitation responsibilities if not ensuring that these responsibilities were met via legislation.
