Thalanga mine remediation project
In 1975, copper, lead, and zinc resources were discovered at Thalanga, leading to production starting in 1989. The site was disclaimed by liquidators in December 2022 after a fall of ground in the Far West underground and other various operational and compliance issues. We are actively managing Thalanga as an abandoned mine site under the Abandoned Mine Lands Program.
Thalanga is an open-cut and underground mine with an onsite processing plant and mine industrial area, a large exploration core yard, a large tailings storage facility, several evaporation and process water dams and a wetland.
- View a glossary of mining terms used on this page.
Project snapshot
Region: North Queensland
Location: 65km west-south-west of Charters Towers, Latitude 20.34 S, Longitude 145.77 E, Program site is approximately 500Ha
Commodity: Copper, Lead, Zinc
Mining type: Open cut and underground
Date of abandonment: December 2022
Status: Remediation ongoing with development of long-term management options
Native title interest: Overlapping applications by Jangga #2 people and Gudjala People
Public land registers: Listed on the Environmental Management Register
Photo gallery
Key risks
Health and safety risks associated with:
- potential instability of the mining pit walls and dump features
- potential instability of the underground workings
- potential for collapse and fall from heights of processing plant and other aging infrastructure
- high-voltage electricity.
Environmental risks associated with:
- poor-quality water as a result of acid mine drainage with potential impacts on surface and ground water
- tailings storage facility integrity
- potential for contaminated sediment runoff.
Completed works
- Care and maintenance operations, including water management, site security and general clean-up.
- Installation of mechanical evaporators and floating sprinkler systems to increase focus on evaporation of contaminated water.
- Earthworks to repair integrity of tailings storage facility, waste dumps and water management infrastructure to improve containment of containments.
- Make-safe works for underground access points.
- Hazardous waste and dangerous goods removal.
- Isolation and decomissioning of obsolete and hazardous electrical infrastructure.
- Maintenance works retained high-voltage electrical infrastructure.
- Clean-up of outlying infrastructure areas and remediation and revegetation works.
- Development of site water balance model and management plan.
- Drilling, sampling and analysis work to understand residual mineralisation.
Planned works
- Continuing treatment of contaminated water.
- Irrigation of clean water to pasture.
- Closure planning for tailings storage facility and mine pit and dumps.
- Re-commercialisation assessment.
- Portal closure with designs that support wildlife movement.