Miners back under Maldon
courtesy of the Tarrangower Times
(from November 24, 2006)
RIGHT: Les Cox at the portal of the newly enlarged decline, a virtual underground road, at the bottom of the old Union Hill pit.
Maldon-based miner Alliance resources has begun the de-watering of the old gold mines beneath the town as a prelude to the resumption of underground mining.
The company expects to pump about two million litres of water a day over the next few months and then to lower the pumping rate to about half a million litres after the ground water is lowered to the working levels.
Alliance says the efforts to resume mining in Maldon have hit full speed in recent weeks.
As well as developing its massive dam complex alongside the Bendigo road, Alliance has also begun major work on the decline, the tunnel which will take it down to the historial gold reefs.
The decline opening is in the base of the old Union Hill Pit and also penetrates more han 150 metres into the solid rock.
The decline now heads off in a north-west direction and is four metres wide and high.
It dips at a rate of seven in one and will soon swirl around to begin a southward thrust alongside the old reefs.
Testing and sampling will go on while the decline is being built. Eventually it will end up in an area of reefs which Alliance believes had escaped the attention of 19th and early 20th Century miners.
Alliance site manager Jason Fothergill said he hoped to have completed the two kilometre long decline in about a year.
He said much of the recent activity had gone into building a technologically complex dam and de-watering complex. The massive new pit was essential to the company’s plans. But a return to undergound work could produce another "bonanza" for some in Maldon. Talks were underway on delivering a large amount of stock and domestic water to the other side of the Nuggetty Range from the mine.
These plans included running a pipe from the Union Hill site, along the Back Cemetery Road to a large holding tank near the Maldon cemetery. From there it could be used for farms and agri-businesses from Bradford to Baringhup. Alliance is also talking to Mount Alexander Shire about providing a standpipe in Maldon for stock and domestic water. At present the town standpipe uses potable water.
Alliance now has six full-time workers on the project as well as more than a dozen contractors working in the town. At the peak of its production, Alliance would employ around 35 people including miners, drillers, office staff and mill workers.
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