Anchor Resources granted yet another exploration lease in the Clarence River Catchment by O'Farrell Government

From A Clarence Valley Protest 4 July 2013:

Anchor Resources extends its mining exploration footprint within the Clarence River catchment area

Chinese-owned mining exploration company Anchor Resources Limited has extended its mineral tenements within the Dorrigo Plateau-Clarence River catchment area.

In June 2013 the NSW O’Farrell Coalition Government granted a further three-year exploration lease EL 8100 which connects those gold and antimony tenements the company has already extensively explored. 

This increased footprint comes with an increased risk of antimony, arsenic, and/or mercury contamination in a sensitive section of the catchment should the proposed commercial mines come to fruition.

Australian Government National Pollutant Inventory:

Both mercury and its compounds have high acute(short-term) and have high chronic (long-term) toxicity on aquatic life. Eating fish contaminated with mercury has caused poisoning in humans; birds and land animals exposed in the same manner could also be subject to the same effects. There is not sufficient data to determine the acute toxicity of mercury and its compounds on plants, birds or land animals. Mercury and its compounds are highly persistent in water and the environment and will bioaccumulate or concentrate in the tissues of fish. These concentrations will be considerably higher than the water from which the fish is taken.

* Map found at www.anchorresources.com