How a Marble Bar store ended up in a mine row MARK DRUMMOND 29...

How a Marble Bar store ended up in a mine row
MARK DRUMMOND


29 April 2006
The West Australian
METRO

Government emphasis on a courier in the Shovelanna lease dispute comes under fire

For decades, Lenny Lever has looked after the power and water supplies, the airport and the general store in Australia's hottest town.

But more recently, the 68-year-old Marble Bar veteran has inadvertently become the central figure in a tenement dispute destined to become part of Australian mining folklore - the fight over the multi-billion-dollar Shovelanna iron ore deposit near Mt Newman.

Under immense public pressure, Resources Minister John Bowler sought to explain on Thursday why he exercised his ministerial discretion to deny Cazaly Resources the rights to the disputed lease and return ownership to Rio Tinto, even though the mining giant had missed the deadline to lodge its renewal forms last August.

In his explanation, Mr Bowler placed much stock in the efforts made by Rio to send its renewal documents to the mining registrar's office in Marble Bar. He said Rio had dispatched an