Bendigo mine rehabilitation works continue

The Geological Survey of Victoria (GSV) has catalogued more than 2000 drill holes and almost 1700 pallets of drill core at the Woodvale Evaporation Ponds Complex prior to transferring 223 pallets to the drill core library in Werribee for further evaluation and storage.

Resources Victoria said by preserving some of these Woodvale samples that were stockpiled by the former licensee, they can be studied without further drilling required.

“The drill core to be stored at the Geological Survey of Victoria’s drill core library are valuable geoscientific assets which will improve our understanding of Bendigo’s geology,” Resources Victoria chief executive officer Matt Vincent said.

Stage two removal of the remaining drill core from the Woodvale site in now underway.

Near the Woodvale site, rehabilitation works at the Kangaroo Flat continues with the tailing storage facility being covered with rock to suppress dust levels over the summer period.

“The Earth Resources Regulator has permanently sealed the Swan Decline, the primary gateway to Bendigo’s historical underground mining,” Vincent said.

“We’ve unearthed significant historical records and snapshots at Kangaroo Flat dating back to the 1850s and it’s great to be able to pass these on to the Bendigo Historical Society and Goldfields Library Corporation.”

GBM Gold subsidiary Kralcopic previously held mining licences around Bendigo, which included the Kangaroo Flat site and the Woodvale Evaporation Ponds Complex.

The Earth Resources Regulator, which is now an entity of Resources Victoria, decided not to renew Kralcopic’s three mining licences in August 2019 due to “the company’s inability to provide surety that it could finance its mining activities and site rehabilitation obligations”.

The Federal Court of Australia appointed KPMG as Kralcopic’s liquidators in April 2021.