Looking ahead

Mine closure is a continuous series of activities that begins with pre-planning prior to the project’s design and construction and ends with the achievement of long-term site stability and the establishment of a self-sustaining ecosystem. Effective mine closure planning results in a more satisfactory environmental outcome for governments and the community.

A Strategic Framework for Mine Closure has been developed by the Australian and New Zealand Minerals and Energy Council (ANZMEC) and the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) to provide a broadly consistent framework for mine closure across Australia.

Planning for mine closure preceded the Framework by many years, as the example of Bridge Hill Ridge demonstrates.

In 1974 BHP Titanium Minerals Pty Ltd (then known as Minerals Deposits Limited) began mining rutile (titanium dioxide) from a dune system at Bridge Hill Ridge on the mid-north coast of NSW. The area had been extensively researched to ensure that it could be returned to native bushland after mining and seeds had been collected to be germinated and replanted later.

The mining finished in 1983 and the area was included in the Myall Lakes National Park. The newest vegetation on the mine site is well over twenty years old and the whole site now exhibits the characteristics of an immature forest ecosystem which will, with time, show little evidence that mining ever took place.