I attended the meetings on Coronation Hill when Newmont(?_think it was them) was trying to gain approval to explore/mine for gold, in the 1980's. Of course, the t/o's through NLC argued its sacredness as the site of Bulla ( Bulla a mythological serpent- is also depicted as the logo for the NLC, for those who have seen it)and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs rejected the application. (actually there were many U mines around the South Alligator and Pine Creek/Moline areas-don't know what happened to the plant and equipment-these were the days b4 current ALP Caucus policy on U mines)
But wow, there's a lot of stuff in that geology. Coronation Hill was big. Gold was the target as it was difficult to get approval for a nw U mine then. There was also an operational uranium mine there, closed in the 196's and operated by United Uranium I think. Sold a lot of its U concentrates to the Rum Jungle mob.
EPR should not have many probs - cleaned up in the 1980's by the Commonwealth (Atomic Energy Commission) who owned the mine which was contracted out to Consolidated Zinc to manage(now RIO). I see the C'wealth has added some guidelines to the PER but have left the oversight of the to the NTG, so should be no problems. The mine produced 867000t ore @ 0.27-0.43% for 3530t U. The Batchelor township was built to service the mine.
Hope I'm accurate in all this.
CMR Price at posting:
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