The Sibelco mining company donated $25,000 to the Harden District Education Foundation (HDEF) last Thursday the 2nd of April. The Senior Regional Manager, Brian Stokes, presented the cheque to President Charlotte Middleton and Sam Flanery of the HDEF, at Murrumburrah High School.
Stokes was joined by Regional Manager Prem Chand, Environmental Manager Don Cheong, and Communications Officer Anna Warby, in presenting the cheque.
“This donation helps us to keep doing what we are doing,” said Charlotte Middleton. “We will now be able to broaden our activities to help even more students.” Students in need of assistance are encouraged to contact the HDEF by emailing them at HDEF02@hotmail.com.
The donation is part of Sibelco’s ‘Sustainable Community’ ethos, which has seen Sibelco get involved in various community organisations and initiatives. Sibelco to date has donated $10,000 to the Harden Skate Park Committee for 2015, and $8,000 to the Kite Festival. The Harden Chamber of Commerce also received a $10,000 donation from Sibelco for its annual business awards night. In addition, the company has worked with Harden-Murrumburrah Landcare to study fertiliser effectiveness.
The Sibelco mining company held a community consultation meeting in Galong the night before on April 1st as a first step in its attempt to amend the existing Developing Application held by Sibelco for the Galong limestone mine. Sibelco intends to submit a variation application for its current Development Application in the next two months.
In a far more sedate affair, the Sibelco Company, which took over operations of the Galong limestone mine from Boral in 2012, outlined its plans to increase its annual production at the site to 320,000 tonnes per annum (tpa), known as Project 320.
Residents of Galong, the Mayor, Councillors, the Acting General Manager, and members of the Harden-Murrumburrah Chamber of Commerce packed into the Galong Memorial Hall for the meeting. At least seven ‘reinforcements’ from Sibelco were present at the meeting, and a representative of the Cootamundra Local Area Command, Detective Sergeant Damian Nott, was also present.
Senior Regional Manager of Southern Operations, Brian Stokes, stated Sibelco’s case for the 320,000 (tpa) extraction goal. He further elucidated that Sibelco’s plans do not include building a by-pass road. The construction of a road to by-pass the town by May 2015 was a condition of Boral’s original Development Application approval to commission four new limestone kilns and to extract 500,000 tonnes per annum from the site.
Sibelco inherited this Development Application when it acquired the site from Boral in 2012. If the road is not built, the annual extraction rate drops to 110,000 tpa, with Stokes revealing that the production of Aglime would be significantly curtailed in this instance, with the majority of production devoted to the more profitable Quicklime product. This would mean that local farmers would have to pay an $8 per tonne premium on Aglime trucked in from other areas.
Sibelco is currently extracting 160,000 – 170,000 tpa, with the production of Quicklime set to begin later in 2015 with the commissioning of the refurbished kiln.
According to Stokes, building the road was not commercially viable, considering that Sibelco intends to extract 180,000 tpa less than Boral originally intended to. In addition, the road was seen as being non-beneficial to the Galong community, as the road would be for the exclusive use of the mine and one stretch would still use Crescent Street.
Stokes met community concerns about truck traffic operating past the 12 hour operations period between 7:00am and 7:00pm by stating that, on that very day, action had indeed been taken against a driver who had turned up to the site at 6:45 am. Stokes stated that Sibelco was taking any breaches of the curfew on trucks very seriously.
Detective Sergeant Nott was invited to make a statement and field questions regarding truck driver behaviour and community safety concerns. “Sibelco is working proactively,” said Detective Sergeant Nott. “If we [the Police] receive a complaint, we are required to follow it up.” Detective Sergeant not went on to state that the police are able to influence truck speeds and driver behaviour, and that the Highway Patrol was the best placed to do this.
In response to a question regarding the prospect of Sibelco buying houses in Galong, Stokes said “I am not going to commit to buying properties. However, we are not ruling it out though. It has been done before.”
Stokes did commit, however, to noise and vibration mitigation measures for individual houses, especially for houses along Ryan Street.
A full-time Site Manager is set to begin at Galong next week. The manager has committed to living in Galong, and according to Stokes, will be the face of the company for Galong residents.
Pictured are Communications Officer Anna Warby, Regional Manager Prem Chand, Environmental Manager Don Cheong, Samantha Flanery & President Charlotte Middleton of the Harden District Education Foundation, and Brian Stokes, Senior Regional Manager – Southern Minerals of the Sibelco Mining Company. Sibelco donated $25,000 to the Harden District Education Foundation last Thursday.
