Miner in court for polluting NT's newest National Park

Nathan River Resources - the miner brought in to clean up the mess left behind by Western Desert Resources - are being prosecuted for polluting Limen Bight National Park.

The miner is accused of a breach of their Waste Discharge License - by unlawfully releasing ten million litres of potentially contaminated water into a the Towns River.

Representatives of the company were in court on Tuesday, facing offences that date back to early 2021.

Prosecutions of this kind are rare in the NT - indeed, in Australia - and the miner insists that their breach of authorisation represents no environmental harm.

But environmentalsts, like the Environment Centre's Kirsty Howie, strongly disagree:

“The release of heavy metals into the Towns River has occurred is a travesty, but was inevitable given the slapdash way in which this mine has been regulated”

This is not the first time NT governments have tried to get a new miner in to fix the mess abandoned by a previous operator.

This dubious tactic failed most notably at Mt Todd, where the new operator Vista Gold sat on their hands, trying to drum up investment while they waited for the price of gold to rise, and impotently watched the abandoned stockpile of cyanide wash down the Edith River.

Similarly, a new miner brought in to rake over the Browns pit at Rum Jungle ended up causing more mess (and sterilising the resource) without contributing at all to rehabilitation.

Environmentalists ask when this proven failure of an approach to legacy contamination will be set aside.

The case will return to court late April.