PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The now defunct Texas silver mine, in Queensland, would need an investment of between A$6.9-million and A$9.8-million to be fully rehabilitated, state Environment Minister Dr Steven Miles has said.

The Queensland government became the custodian of the Texas silver mine after the project’s most recent operator, Texas Silver Mines, went into liquidation in July last year, forcing the state government to take responsibility for the site in August.

Since that time, Queensland has been working to avoid the discharge of contaminated water from the site, with Miles saying that about A$400 000 of the A$2.06-million set aside for the project, had already been spent.

“Our primary focus has been to prevent a release of contaminated water and pursue options for further reducing water volumes on site,” Miles said.

As well as an openpit, a waste rock dump and a mineral processing facility, the site included processing ponds and two dams that collectively hold almost 240-million litres of contaminated water containing silver mining by-products such as copper, aluminium, iron, manganese, zinc and nickel.

“A number of works have been designed and installed to ensure that any contaminated stormwater is captured and contained on site. Evaporation systems were put in place and more work is under way to further increase the size of these systems.

Miles said that with the coming of the winter months and generally lower rainfall in the region, the works completed at the site should ease any potential for negative environmental outcomes from the mine.

In March, the state government introduced a Bill to Parliament to ensure that future mine operators would not be able to walk away from their environmental responsibilities once operations have been shut down.

“If passed, the Environmental Protection (Chain of Responsibility) Amendment Bill will provide stronger laws to deal with the issue of businesses leaving Queensland taxpayers with costly environmental clean-up bills,” Miles said.

“Among other things, the Bill imposes a chain of responsibility, giving the Queensland government the ability to pursue these companies and their related parties to meet the cost of managing and rehabilitating sites.”