Regis Resources has taken the next step in the development of the McPhillamy's Gold Project in Blayney having reviewed feedback from the community and government.
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The company lodged both an Amendment Report and Submission Report to the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment on Friday September 4.
Manager of Special Projects Tony McPaul said that one of the major changes to the original EIS is the location of the access road further east along the Mid-Western Highway onto land which the recently purchased.
"We were in the process of purchasing the land when the EIS was submitted," he said.
"There were a number of concerns raised by the community about the access road, vehicle interaction and safety there and this has now allowed us to go east by about a kilometre, which is also where Traffic for NSW thought would be a better location."
The second major change is the optimisation of the mine schedule, tailored to not only be more efficient from a business perspective, but also reduce the impact on King's Plains residents.
"We've changed where we're placing the waste rock in the waste rock emplacement from down on the southern end up to the north end until we've established part of the pit amenity bund, and dug down a bench or two in the open pit," he said.
"By doing that we're taking away the cumulative noise impact that those residents were concerned about."
The reduction of noise is one of the recurring themes in the submission report with new processing machinery part of the solution, the others are visual impact and water use.
The pit amenity bund won't be as big as in the original EIS because of the way the company is using a key way to access the pit.
The design and location of water storage has also been changed, partly to remove a potential heritage issue on a nearby property, but it also allows them to work within a more compressed footprint.
"To do that we've had to build another longer embankment along the tailing's storage facility which gives us a better outcome," he said.
The development application will now be assessed by the NSW DPIE before being determined by the NSW Independent Planning Commission.
A decision will possibly be made in the first half of 2021.
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Mark Logan
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
Started working in newspapers in the 1990's in the darkroom of the Pastoral Times in Deniliquin before moving to Millthorpe in 2003. Soon after arriving I started as a photographer at the CWD. Now a journalist at the Blayney Chronicle.
