"Difficult to access" and "confusing". That's how the vice-president of the Belubula Headwaters Protection Group Bec Price describes Regis Resources' response to the community's concerns regarding the McPhillamy's Gold Project.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The company lodged both an Amendment Report and Submission Report to the NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment on Friday, September 4, and are now available from the DPIE website.
"The original EIS was 6,000 pages and this one is 4,500," she said.
"To make it even harder there are no paper copies available and are only accessible on a thumbdrive or online." Mrs Price said that if anyone was looking for a response to their concerns about any issue to do with the mine the process of doing so was 'laughable".
"If you want to know if your issues have been accurately looked at and addressed you have to go to a table, look up your name, write down the numerous appendix numbers and then try to find that within the 23 appendixes," she said."How is anyone meant to find where their answers are?"
Once they wade through the documents BHPG members will be liaising directly with the DPIE as to further queries and issues they have. "This is a large document with many large changes and we now have no quorum or platform for us to respond to these," Mrs Price said. "We have to wait until the department makes their recommendations and assessment as to whether they think Regis has addressed all of their concerns.
Mrs Price is urging everyone who submitted a document and is not happy with the response, or needs help in finding it, to either contact the BHPG directly or the DPIE.
"They will then take them back to Regis for further clarification before finally coming to a decision as to whether the project is to go ahead or not," Mrs Price said.
"We now have no formal way forward of commenting on these documents other than applying to speak at the Independent Planning Commission hearing."
BHPG president Dan Sutton reinforced the group's frustration. "It's an incredibly frustrating process where the proponent gets two shots at it, and we only get one shot to respond," he said.
The Amendment Report and the Submissions Report are available via: www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/project/9821