The awards acknowledge solutions miners find to minimise environmental impacts on Western Australian resources projects.

This year’s finalists are Chevron; Fortescue Metals Group and partners Ziltek/PT Environmental Services; Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines; Pilbara Mesquite Management Committee; Pilbara Ports Authority; Premier Coal and partner Golder Associates; Rio Tinto Iron Ore; and St Barbara Ltd.

The citations were for:

Chevron, Wheatstone micro-tunnel project: Chevron’s Wheatstone gas development is adjacent to the Ashburton River delta, which supports mangrove and estuarine habitats. Gas from offshore fields will be gathered using subsea wells and manifolds and transported via flowlines to the offshore Wheatstone platform and then transported to the onshore processing facilities by the newly installed 225km pipeline. To protect the coastal area, the pipeline is linked to the processing plant via a micro-tunnel. The micro-tunnel is the critical link, creating a shore crossing that starts behind the coastal dune system, extends seaward and terminates under the ocean floor. It provides an innovative solution to crossing the shoreline by tunnelling under the coastal environment and reducing impacts to the onshore area.

Fortescue Metals Group, better environmental outcomes from hydrocarbon spills using RemScan: Fortescue’s Chichester and Solomon hubs in the Pilbara are using innovative technology to improve the day-to-day management of hydrocarbon-contaminated soil from spills. This technology, developed by Ziltek and marketed as RemScan, allows for the real-time in-field analysis of hydrocarbon-contaminated soils, which reduces the need for costly and time-consuming laboratory analysis.

Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines, Gidji emissions reduction project: The Golden Mile’s sulphide ore has been roasted since 1898 and KCGM has been investigating and trialling concentrate treatment alternatives since the 1990s. In 2015, KCGM installed a large ultra-fine grinding mill at Gidji to replace roasting, eliminating 100% of atmospheric stack emissions. This demonstrates continuous process improvement which has eliminated a major source of atmospheric stack emissions.

Pilbara Mesquite Management Committee, battling the thorny menaces through corporate alliances project:  PMMC is spearheading the development of resource company alliances to invest in strategic and comprehensive weed management programs across the Pilbara. These alliances are removing vast areas of Mesquite and Parkinsonia from the landscape, improving and restoring the natural environment. Through partnerships with the PMMC, resource projects are able to benefit from a community approach to weed management.

Pilbara Ports Authority, mangrove rehabilitation program: The authority’s program incorporates a mangrove nursery, rehabilitation trials and research, and community engagement.

Premier Coal/Golder Associates, Lake Kepwari trial flow-through: The former Western Area WO5B coal mining pit-lake in WA’s southwest has been the subject of an innovative trial to investigate and validate the benefits of flow-through systems by allowing degraded local river waters to mix with the acidic waters in a former mine void. Premier Coal has spearheaded the Lake Kepwari project and spent the last four years working in partnership with environmental consultants Golder Associates to demonstrate flow-through can improve environmental conditions in the lake itself without affecting Collie River values. 

Rio Tinto Iron Ore, West Angelas fuel hub: The new West Angelas fuel hub exceeds statutory and regulatory environmental requirements with state-of-the-art installation including an industry-leading rail tank car unload facility, a site-wide fully integrated oily water treatment system, bulk storage tanks, leak and overfill protection, secondary containment and bunding, dewatering quick flush tanks and ground-level product sampling cabinets.

St Barbara Ltd’s Gwalia operations absorption chiller upgrade: The underground mine is close to Leonora and as its depth increased, it increased the capacity of the mine cooling system to maintain safe working conditions. The air cooling system had been the largest energy consumer at the Gwalia mine site, so to increase cooling capacity without increasing energy consumption, St Barbara applied absorption refrigeration technology for the first time in the Australian mining industry. The new cooling system uses waste heat energy from the power plant and converts it to cool air for the underground mine. The mine has more than doubled its cooling capacity while reducing power demand, resulting in a significant reduction in carbon emissions.

Marmion will present the 24th annual Golden Gecko Award on October 29 in Perth.