Mt Gunson Mine, EMECO. 1986
March 1986 with the mine closing in 5 months Brian McMahon from McMahon's asked me to help with a three month supervisors role working for a company called Kinhill Sterns as part of RMS (Roxby Management Services) who had several civil jobs they were in urgent need to start at the new underground mine site 140 km north of Mt Gunson called Olympic Dam. This was the ore body Alan Turnbull had been shown two or three Christmas's previous from Roxby Downs Station.
About a month before I commenced my contract at Olympic Dam an
unwashed rent a crowd of protesters had set off with much publicity to
walk from Adelaide to Olympic Dam as a protest over the uranium mine.
Uranium
was simply a by product of the much much larger OD copper mining
operation 1989 (66,000 tonnes produced from a plant capable of 200,000
tonnes pa) along with a number of other by products like Uranium oxide
(1988. 4,300 tonnes pa) gold (1988. 80,000 oz), silver. (1988. 850,000
oz)
The protesters powered by an ancient tribal mentality with no
apatite for facts gained TV coverage along the way as they approached
OD, what wasn't covered on the news service was their habit of over
painting or defacing all road side signage, or the fact apart from their
equipment and supplies being carried by an old Austen 1950s vintage
motor car their garbage and anything unwanted was simply discarded along the road side.
I arrived at Olympic Dam while the feral protesters were having a brief stop at the US Airforce's
Nurrungar satellite base just out of Woomera for a spot of TV protesting and a launch of a
much advertised radar jamming balloon packed with foil they intended to launch high over the base. This highly anticipated launch became a bit of a fizzer when the balloon
developed a serious leak after colliding with a bullet
from an unknown source at about 50 feet, it returned to earth looking very much like an oversize used condom. The non existing radar at the base was never in any danger of being jammed as the station talked to passing satellites via a large steerable dish. Without a suitable radar reflector and small descent parachute attached, the balloon would have been a potential invisible danger to overflying commercial aircraft and its passengers should it become ingested into one of the high bypass engines.
Their eventual arrival at the OD
main gate caused very little trouble until the media arrived, once the cameras appeared things
went crazy for a time, quickly returning to normal the moment the media left.
A
month of camping along side the main gate quickly turned the camp into a
mess, litter blowing about and the general smell of the unwashed
protesters defecating in the nearby bush and with daytime temperatures
often climbing into the 40's (100+F) their health was causing management some concern.
A news announcement was planned and the
media flown to site.
Due to the untidy mess and defaced signage at the
main gate, management chose to hold the event about a half a km further
along the fence, well away from the main gate.
Once the rent a group
flocked to the press site to began the latest media performance, a large bulldozer slipped out through the
locked main gate and quickly buried their vintage Austen, making sure any chance
of its discovery would be made even more difficult by disturbing several
alternate locations.
A water truck was later supplied for the feral group to
use to top up their water containers, bathe and generally clean themselves. A bus was also arranged to transport them back to Adelaide, their habit
of painting and tagging objects continued with the water cart being
spray painted with slogans as they demonstrated their thanks and lack
respect for the free 20,000 liters of fresh water and the private property that delivered it.
The Task.
Roxby Management Services (RMS) wanted someone to initiate and supervise several projects they were in urgent need of starting. One was to provide an upgrade of a bush track that ran 136km north to a series of water bores that supplied the newly completed desalination plant, they wanted to truck the water down as an interim measure, a planned pipeline would eventually replace the triple water carts in a year or two.
With several contract employees and administration approval I quickly began pushing the access road northward.
About 15km along what was to become the bore field road I was standing on a sand hill overlooking the operation when a new Toyota 4WD stopped and a visiting group of under grad university engineers got out. They were instantly covered in flies as they climbed the sand hill, vigorously waving their hands back and forth in the great Ozzy salute in a pointless attempt to keep the flies away. After joining me to ask questions as to what was going on and what the role of each of the machines in the operation they made notes took photos and began to leave. One young lady showing a little more observational powers than her contemporaries approached and noting I had very few flies bothering me asked if I used some sort of fly repellent?
I replied I use an old aborigine trick to keep the flies away from my face.
Suddenly interested she asked, what was the secret ?
I said simply, I don't wipe my bum.
The look of shock and surprise showed the answer had taken her back a little.
I waited a little then added, The true secret is not to use perfume or perfumed soap, flies can smell it from miles away. So which version of the secret are you going to tell your fellow travelers? I asked.
Her face changed and she smiled, "Ill have to think about that one".
I had an Aboriginal grader driver helping, one day as we came against a pegged off area.
He approached me to let me know a number of Elders were expected to visit our road project to advise us on the direction the road could take around a sacred site, I had known of the planned visit but hadn't mentioned it to anyone. He went on to inform me the dust way off on the horizon was the visitors and this wasn't his land and there could be trouble if he was seen on it uninvited.
Before us stood a small mound, surrounded by a ring of larger rocks, obviously signifying something special about the ground .
Knowing the problems he might face I informed him to take my vehicle and disappear into the scrub for an hour or so.
Fifteen minutes later three new 4WD vehicles pulled up at the end of the road, I was a little puzzled to see my vehicle still parked close by as the several visiting elders climbed out.
They looked about for a few minutes before one walked up to me, his first words were, WHERE ARE WE BOSS?
It seemed the traditional owners of this land had never set foot on it and lived somewhere up in Queensland.
After introductions and a lot of walking about, pegs were hammered in and hands shaken as the elders directed us around the chosen sacred sites.
They then climbed back into the vehicles and headed off back the way they had come.
I peered into my parked vehicle expecting to see my aboriginal grader driver hiding inside, instead the car was empty.
I turned to walk away when behind me appeared the aboriginal soaking wet.
Surprised by his condition and sudden appearance, I asked him where he had been.
He smiled then replied, I hid in the back of the water truck, I knew they wouldn't find me in there, because aboriginals don't like water,
I asked him if he knew the significance of the mound and ring of large rocks we were going round.
He looked at the mound for a moment then replied that's not an Aboriginal sacred site.
I was taken back a little by his comment. It's not? I asked.
Na, he said, When was the last time you saw an Aboriginal lift a one ton rock, referring to the large rocky ring surrounding the mound.
A second project was to build a road and maintenance access track from the northern switch yard to the site where the proposed town of Roxby Downs was planned.
A second team was formed and they set off starting from the southern end with a D8 dozer, three Ford Louisville trucks a Loader, Grader.
Our Dozer operator was a Polish migrant who had first worked on the famous Snowy Mountains Hydro Project then spent twenty years working in the bush often on his own. He could push and cut to level with only basic measurements and was easily one of the best dozer operators I had come across. He was often some way ahead of the main work group pushing trees and clearing vegetation while performing a little leveling between the sand dunes.
Like all bushmen he had a bit of a drinking problem which had little effect on his amazing abilities with the dozer.
Lunch time he preferred to simply sit on his machine and have a couple of quiet beers, something highly frowned on by management, but knowing his ability would save the company hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars I said nothing.
His wife would often pay him a visit during the lunch breaks, the two would sit under a near-by shady tree and wash their lunch down with a beer or two.
One day I drove to where the dozer was parked to touch base with him when I discovered them both on the side of the sand hill completely naked and having sex. My base touching could wait till later, I thought.
Inspecting the completed access track I came a cross a small group standing on a sand hill near the southern end. I approached them to discover they were looking at the site with a copy of the town laid out on a large plan.
I inspected the drawings with interest when one of the town planners approached and asked what I thought of the way the town was laid out.
I looked at the numerous curved streets and disjointed access roads and said simply, "its shit".
Taken back a little he explained the curved roads were to control the traffic speed and make the town a safe place for children to play on.
I smiled and explained, this layout had been used in the suburb of Elizabeth in Adelaide and has proved to be a dead flop, It wont stop speeding drivers, it has made every road a blind road, and the day time temperatures here are usually in the high thirties to mid forties kid wont want to play out on a hot bitumen road in those sort of temperatures and there is no easy access connecting road east west or north south through the town for an ambulance. Having said enough I left.
The town was eventually built to the same plan clearly demonstrating the lack of intelligence shown by the Roxby Down town planners who were were clearly in love with curves and not convenience.
A third project was to clear, push and build an access track suitable for semi-trailers to off load the 133kva power line components for the towers all the way from the Northern switch yard in Olympic Dam to Woomera 90 or so km south.
The Polish dozer driver set off through the trees and scrub followed by the grader, eventually breaking out onto the gibber plain about twenty km south of OD.
This was where I caught up with him one day to check his progress.
While we were there, a battered Toyota ute appeared and stopped along side.
It was the actual owner of the Olympic Dam property Tom Allison.
Tom had originally farmed a property in the Hunter Valley NSW many years before when one day an exploration drilling team discovered coal, lots and lots of coal under his property. Eventually Tom was forced to sell up and a large coal mine was built, leaving Tom very peeved.
Tom and his wife brought a property in the far remote outback of South Australia in a place no one had ever heard of, far from the cities and any bloody mining developers.
Then just a few days before Christmas 1983 an exploration drilling team, working near a dam that had been put in in 1956, called Olympic Dam in recognition of the Olympic Games being held in Melbourne that year. The drill brought up some very interesting drill cores, now three years later the Olympic Dam project was putting Tom though the very same problems he ran away from years earlier in the Hunter Valley.
It was obvious Tom was not at all happy to see me or the dozer on the pristine gibber field, (neither was I) as he approached.
What the fuck are you doing here he said, (using the polite version)
Its an access track for the 133kva powerline to Woomera I explained.
It's suppose to be five km further east Tom explained.
I retrieved my plan and spread it out over the bonnet of my vehicle to show him.
Like fuck it is Tom said (loudly) after studying the plan for a few moments.
Can you stop till I sort this out? he asked.
It was early afternoon and I had no problem so told the operator to catch up with me in the morning before leaving site and to complete his paperwork as per normal.
Visiting the construction and development office in the morning I inquired about out come of Toms visit and the problem he had with the access track.
RMS management had sorted the problem out and I was to proceed as normal.
Tom made no further visits.
20 years later I met Tom and his wife Allison by accident, when they were stopped on the side of the road between Port Augusta and Woomera. Tom, driving a large Winnebago, his wife following along behind with a large Toyota 4WD towing an even larger boat, they were on their way north to do spot of fishing, They had eventually sold Roxby Down Station to Western Mining and moved on, we both had a good laugh when we recounted our first meeting.
RMS wanted to move the location of the service station out from the rapidly growing construction accommodation camp area, something I was also expanding as another of my projects, to a location on the east side of the planned and yet to be built, main north south highway between Olympic Dam and the proposed site of the Roxby Downs township which at that time only existed in the drawing office, the only work on the town of Roxby Downs at this stage was an access and maintenance track for the power line I recently completed which began in the northern switch yard and ended in a patch of scrub leading off to nowhere.
I set off to build a one kilometer long section of main highway that started at the base of a sand hill and ended where the existing access road met the eastern end of the airfield runway, (also under construction) The questions and looks when people discovered a magnificent one kilometer section of main highway complete with camber, drains, marker posts, shoulders and signage ending against a sand hill and going no where kept me busy when ever I entered the wet-mess.
Along side this section of road I flattened a sand hill and formed and hard stand pad for the location of the service station and other structures along side.
After removing the sand to obtain the correct basement level the task was to provide a 400mm fill of clay rubble from which to start. A problem quickly became obvious when I received the plans for the fill and discovered when comparing both the final highway design level and the apron of the service station didn't match, either the final level of the highway was one meter lower than it should have been or the service station apron was one meter higher than indicated on the plan. I consulted with the onsite surveyors to find where the discrepancy lay.
After a day resurveying we discovered both sites were correct, according to the drawings and yet the access to the service station didn't match.
A consultation with both RMS and the director of WMC Mr Hugh Morgan who was ultimately responsible for the project were just as perplexed.
All work stopped while the problem went back to the engineers and the drawing office. The problem was all projects operated under a tight budget and although the highway had moneys left having come in under budget, the removal of the top of the sand hill had cost slightly more than expected despite using a more efficient and certainly faster method of an open bowel scraper.
With insufficient funds remaining in the budget to remove an additional meter from the entire service station site it was decided to simply continue construction from the current plan level.
It was later discovered the drawing office had failed to carry a one (1 meter) when finishing off the drawing so the figures, costings and final volumes were out by some 150,000 cubic meters.
To this day the service station sits exactly one meter higher than my section of the main access highway.
After three months on site RMS (Roxby Management Services) and after completing almost a dozen or so projects my contract with Kinhill Sterns was up and I returned to Mt Gunson Mine to help continue with the mine closure.
Mt Gunson Mine, August 1986.
The last three days.
I was sitting in a pair of shorts and expensive shirt finally enjoying a day off after weeks of washing moving sorting identifying and generally preparing the mine for sale.
August 1986. The last month of the Australian winter and I was wearing shorts and tee shirts in what should have been a cold miserable winter. 1986 found most of the southern part of Australia still in the grips of four years of drought, our annual 4 inch rainfall had been absent for over four years, gone, nothing, the country was open, bare, just red sand for as far as you could see, no grass, the low branches of the trees had been eaten years ago by the departing sheep and cattle leaving only the trunk and a high sparse thin canopy above offering very little shade, despite the tree climbing ability of the local rabbits putting in their best efforts to eat what little green was left.
It was becoming hard just to remember what the country side looked like three or four years ago.
It was just bloody dry making our years of effort at restoration and regeneration of the mine area difficult, and appearing to have been just a wast of time.
El Nino, a warm body of water in the central Pacific Ocean had been almost stationary for four years and was effectively drawing the moisture away from the Australian continent and into the Central, Eastern Pacific area.
The operations at Mt Gunson Mine had ended a month earlier, the equipment all parked up now sat idle, we had spent most of the previous month washing every piece of equipment in preparation for the auction, all parked shoulder to shoulder in a large semicircle around the front of the workshop.
Most of the employees had left site, bonuses paid, rooms emptied, car-park emptied, power and water turned off to all but essential services.
I had moved out of the house at the Town Center and back into the single men's camp, living in what had been Allen Turnbull's house.
AUCTION 14th 15th 16th AUGUST 1986.
An entire Mine site for sale
CAT Earth moving equipment 12 x 769A,B & C series plus 3 x 773B Dump trucks. CAT 991B and 5 CAT 988B highlift loaders, CAT D9L, D9H Dozers, Komatsu dozer, 12e and 140G Graders, 20 Toyota 4WD, vehicles, bus's, small trucks.
Ball-Mill, Primary and gyratory crushers storage bins and conveyors, sundry vehicles.
Mine Store, 15 transportable house, An entire 100 man camp, kitchen, freezers, refrigerators, 3 complete laundry's.
Administration office, large IBM computer, tables, chairs, filing cabinets storage.
Lighting plants, pumps, power lines, Polly pipe and welder.
Large Workshop building suitable for Earth moving equipment, Complete service truck, 20 ton Crane. fittings, An entire store of spares, lighting, crib room and ablution block.
Auction held over three days.
On and on the notice read over twenty pages of items, each numbered, catalogued washed and on offer.
With the auction just two days away the number of on site employees were just fifteen or twenty people, it was hard to keep up as each day they continued to leave in ones and two's.
It was also hard to believe in less than five days the place I called home for almost nine years would be sold and gone forever.
I was packing a few more things into my trailer, the house was mostly empty when around 4pm a wet misty fog drifted in, hardly enough to wet anything it was so light, it continued for a good hour gradually becoming a heavy mist the floating drops coating everything in an unenthusiastic wetness.
I was standing on the front porch watching still dressed in shorts and tee shirt, when a car pulled up and Terry, one of the few remaining employees jumped out and approached me.
I've just come back from Woomera, he began quickly adding, do you know every power pole on the road coming in from the highway all the way to the mine is either smoking or on fire Terry said.
Your kidding me, I replied.
 |
| 8 km of Burning power poles. |
Not kidding he replied.
Aw, Shit! I returned, as I headed to my vehicle and drove out to check.
As we passed over the famous Cattle Grid and turned onto the main straight along the road ahead of me for as far as I could see every power pole standing along side the road had smoke or a fire silently burning on the top of the actual pole. The mist by now was turning into a very light rain, there were no sounds at all making the whole scene appear surreal.
We returned to the truck shop where I sent Terry off to alert DOC the last remaining manager on site while I entered the workshop and found the keys for the water truck and the 992 Loader knowing it had a reasonable quantity of fuel.
I checked the water cart and discovered it still had hoses and fuel on board but the water tank was completely empty.
By the time I had checked and started both vehicles both Terry and DOC joined me.
We confirmed what was happening, DOC set off to ring the Woomera power company and inform them of the situation and to organise some one to shut the power off.
While he headed off to make the phone calls I discovered Terry had never driven a vehicle with a crash type gear box (non synchromesh) and had never sat in a front end loader, I realised there were only two people on the entire site who could operate any of the equipment DOC and myself the remainder were either involved with the auction company, the store or camp and kitchen staff.
I started the old fire truck and with Terry on board, moved off as I placed the vehicle in second gear I jumped off informing Terry not to try to change gears and instead drive it down the haul road to the mine where I knew the overhead tank was still full, I would catch up with him there.
I then climbed into the loader and soon had it heading after the water truck, passing it along the way even though I was going slow in an effort not to fling mud over the clean machine.
Together we managed to back under and fill the water truck before heading off toward the power poles, by then the rain had become noticeably heavier.
Just a little way past the Cattle Grid we parked on the side of the road as the sun set and sat in the growing darkness watching the pole fires silently burn in the rain.
After years of no rain the tops of the poles and the cross trees had accumulated a layer of dust.
With the wet mist proceeding the rain the dust had become wet and saturated then began to conduct electricity allowing the electrical power to leak across the pole generating heat eventually becoming hot enough to ignite the wooden cross arms and the pole.
After ten or fifteen minutes, DOC arrived informing us the power company had been informed and someone was on their way to shut it off, he had also stopped by the camp and informed the kitchen staff of the situation.
The three of us could only watch and wait.
Eventually through the heavy driving rain we could see a vehicle slowly making its way toward us.
It stopped on the road as we approached, the drivers side window cracked open a little way and from somewhere inside the darkness a voice informed us the power was now off.
Without waiting the vehicle made a three point turn on the road making sure it wasn't going to fall off and end up in the thick red mud before it headed off the way if had come.
We fired up the water truck and loader and moved into position at the first pole.
DOC climbed into the loader while I tied the hose to the side of the bucket and with the water truck along side I was raised up to the same height as the power line.
As I turned on the tap I had an ugly thought, that I hoped the unseen voice inside the mystery vehicle wasn't a practical joker.
I splashed the hose over the power lines a couple of times to check for a reaction in the process accidentally splashed one of the hot ceramic insulators, it instantly exploded, sending sharp chunks of hot ceramics flying off in all directions.
Even close up there was no noise as the fire quietly ate its way down inside the poles dry center.
It was an easy job to simply fill the hollow to put the fire out, before signaling DOC to move the loader on to the next pole.
And so our trio progressed in the pitch black darkness one pole at a time.
After a few poles I was almost knee deep in water inside the bucket which sloshed uncomfortably back and forth each time the loader moved.
It was approaching midnight by the time we reached the last pole where my swimming pool and I were eventually lowered to the ground.
We shut down the loader, deciding to leave it in place until the morning, then waded through the sea of mud to where the firetruck had parked on the road, with torrential rain falling, the three of us covered head to foot in the red muddy clay with streaks of black charcoal, all of us still dressed in light summer clothing and for the first time I realised the actual temperature had also dropped to near freezing.
Every day this mine has operated, DOC began, it had always tossed up one unexpected problem after another, and here it is with just two days to go before it is sold, it is still throwing up problems.
I had to agree having spent a lot of my time involved with fixing them
I jumped into the fire truck and using all the gears, the three of us headed back to where DOC had parked his vehicle almost 8km away.
Back in camp I dropped Terry off and headed home where I managed to have a luke warm shower in the dark before falling into bed.
By morning the rain had passed, by mid morning I set out in the grader taking it very slowly so as not to get the machine too dirty as most of the wash equipment and hoses had been stored away and catalogued, the job was to tidy up and grade the access road for the hundreds of visitors about to descend on the site. With the road made tidy I set off to retrieve the loader and by midnight had everything washed and placed back into position for the auction to start in the morning.
By 9am there were thousands of visitors wandering about site reading, climbing and poking about.
as the auction got underway.
About 6pm the auction ended for the day and I returned to camp, the kitchen staff informed me they had no one available to open the bar, so I stepped in and not knowing the prices of the goods simply sold every thing for either $2 if it was a beer or $1 if it was anything else, giving the remaining working staff credit with a promise they pay me one day next week.
By the end of auction day two the kitchen bar and the entire camp were sold and in the process of being broken up and loaded onto waiting trucks, Terry was attempting to disconnect water supplies with no tools or parts as they had been auctioned off the previous day and were no longer available.
Buildings were simply lifted onto departing trailers often without disconnecting the plumbing, often by having the water fittings and pipes simply cut with a panel saw, leaving the water to simply flood onto the ground with no care or attempt to stem the flow. By the end of day two, with nowhere to sleep, eat or drink and with people, trucks, cranes and chaos everywhere I said my good buys and drove away.
RETURN VISIT:
It was eighteen years before I dropped in one day to visit the site.
Chuckling as I drove along the access road at the sight of the tree branches we had used to replace the burnt and damaged cross trees on the power poles many years ago.
The regeneration areas were flourishing, the trillions of seeds, tree planting and grasses were in abundance so much so I had difficulty identifying where the mine and natural landscape joined.
The site living quarters, workshop and mill area looked empty, flat, barren and gave no hint of its former operation.
The single men's camp was unrecognisable only the tree I had nurtured to shade my room in 1978 when I lived in Tin Pan Alley still stood, now fully grown. Even using it as a reference point I still had difficulty placing things.
I visited the area near the town center where my house once stood, just a concrete driveway remained.
The oval fence remained, it was now surrounding a large open sandy area where a few tufts of tall grass grew.
The Town Center stood in disrepair, birds nesting in the roof and open wall panels, red sand built up in the doorways.
The empty pool slowly filling with drift sand.
As I drove away I found it hard to believe I had spent almost nine years working the mine and thought the roads could do with a bit of a grade.
In a book written in 1983 by CSR
Basil Corkin before EMECO turned it into a highly profitable and successful mine, I'm listed as B. Osbourne, I think? CSR couldn't get even that bit right.
end.
Dec. 2017.
