Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I tagged along with the Marron Growers Association to Collie on the weekend and also went along to visit the Ngalang Boodja marron farm built at one of the lakes that have formed in one of the old coal pits.

The link below goes to the ministerial statement released when it was formed in 2009
http://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Lists/Statements/DispForm.aspx?ID=131361

Thought you might like to see a few photos.....

and some more ....

Its a nice setup they have there, been out there before myself. From what I understand the original plan of 100 ponds is gone as the funding has dried up so its unlikely to get any bigger than it is making it unviable considering they pay a guy to run the joint!

Yeah, that pretty well sums it up Gav, plus no mains power plsu having to treat all their water with limestone before they can use - would have to be huge to be viable.

If they've got no mains power... how are they powering the paddlewheels??

Genset - several $100/week in diesel.

Bugger.... Another waste of money then.....

So are they running off generators? Thats gotta start getting expensive, those paddle wheel aerators chew through the power.

see above - musta just pipped you at the post EB

As Wesfarmers are involved all diesel for the generators is supplied by them. The guy running the place just has to go out to the bowsers at the mine and fill up enough drums to keep it running each week.
The place has been set up for a few years now and they still havent even managed to get an aquaculture licence!!!

Makes you wonder where the money comes from......and why

It's Wesfarmers contribution to environment and community. Now, I don't see a lot of community imapct - it employs one local, and is unlikely to ever be economical.

However, as an innovation to using old mine sites, it has broken some new ground and that may lead to something worthwhile elsewhere. There are around 1,800 unused mine/pit lakes in Oz - lot more around the world.

The water in the pit has a pH of 3.5 so virtually nothing lives in it. It's treated with crushed limestone for a few minutes which brings the pH up to around 6.5-7.0 at which point a lot of the contained metals settle out. It's then alright to use.

Waste water from the ponds is pumped back into the pit/lake with the eventual goal of rehabilitating the water back up to a decent pH with some nutrients. Will take 10's of years, but if the project persists, it should get there.

Its a pity that 95% of WA's old pits are hyper saline water lol

Plus some, if any surface water is running across or through overburden to the pit it will be thousands of years. The low pH high metal contaminated water (read acid mine drainage) is caused by the suphides in the rock oxidising when they come into contact with wtaer and oxygen. If there is no oxygen (such as is the case within the pit) the oxidation will be limited and then the water can be improved through raising the pH. As CD said, when the pH increases the dissolved metals drop out. If water is however entering the pit that is passing through broken rock it will oxidse more sulphides as it does and will bring with it increased amounts of metals and low pH water.

I worked at Mt Lyell Copper Mine in Queenstown for 3 years as the environmental scientist and during that time sat on a committee that assessed and handed out NHT funding to environmental projects in the region. It is amazing how much federal, state and corporate money is wasted on these projects in the name of community improvement and involvement None of them are sustainable in the long term when you are talking about funding being required for thousands of years before the issue is remediated. I hated reading through the applications and being forced to actually choose some simply "because the money had to be spent/allocated" knowing full well that the real reason that many of the applications were made was purely to give some consultant billable hours when they were not busy. The consultants use to approach community organisations with proposals and submit them in that organisations name with some money allowed for the organisation to employ a bottom of the pay scale project officer whilst all the research and science was done by the consultants at their rates when it suited them.

Why spend millions of dollars if it will be completely wasted in the end when the funding is cut because it is not sustainable and no-one can afford to throw that type of money at it for 10's of generations. Better to accept mining it was a bad idea and we screwed up because we made a mistake by not knowing the full implications of what we as humans were doing at the time or we as a community were to apethetic to demand that the government not allow it. Treat it as a contamintaed site and allow nature to take it's course while the money is spent instead on some far more worthwhile and sustainable community based environmental improvement projects.

Rant over

This man knows what he is talking about.

And even if I don't I am happy to stand on the soapbox and rant on about it

And I forgot to add that if you involve the local indigenous group you get access to even more funding sources - another favourite trick of consultants