Fire and brimstone as Mt Egerton debates mine's future

Updated November 5 2012 - 10:34am, first published December 11 2003 - 1:02pm

TEMPERS boiled over at Mt Egerton last night as residents debated the future of the town's gold mining operation.
Tech Sol Resources managing director Terry Delahunty had sought to set the record straight on the company's interests at the site, but he received a mixed reception.
Some residents raised public health issues, accusing the company of breaching environmental guidelines and encroaching upon 100-metre buffers.
Others spoke out against the critics, determined to give Mr Delahunty a fair go.
The Department of Primary Industries is threatening to cancel the operator's mining licence unless it can prove it is operating within the prescribed guidelines.
Mr Delahunty told more than 50 people at the meeting Sol Tech had reduced the volume of waste historically left by mining and was in the process of rehabilitating the site for its closure.
But some residents were angry the process had been protracted.
Among them was Jock Pollock, who captured state media attention when it was revealed he had high levels of arsenic in his body.
"There is no fabrication, everything is based on fact and each and every on of you have an invitation to come up and see it," Mr Pollock told the crowd. "All I'm saying to each and every one of you is enough's enough."
But chair of the meeting Steve Matthews said Mt Egerton had been built on gold, dating back to the mid 1800s.
"All that (the mining material) has been there for probably 150 years and as kids we played in it and swam in it ... and I'm 56 years old and there's nothing wrong with me."

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