Xstrata Copper North Queensland chief operating officer Steve de Kruijff said stage two of the Leichhardt River Remediation Project would remove any potential risk to the Mount Isa community in relation to the heavy metal content of historical mine sediment.

Stage one of the project, carried out in September 2007, involved taking and analysing 152 samples from the river.

“Although the University of Queensland’s Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation has identified the potential risk of these sediments to human health to be minimal, this historical mine sediment still needs to be recovered,” he said.

Mr de Kruijff said the additional historical mine sediment had been exposed as a result of natural erosion.

“In the early 1990s Mount Isa Mines removed and remediated areas in Mount Isa where historical mine sediment existed from earlier mining practices in the 1940s and 1950s. This is indicative of the changes in industry and community awareness of appropriate environmental management that occurred over the course of the last century.”

In 1990 and 1991 an area adjacent to the operation, about 1.5 kilometres long and within 1 kilometre of the lease boundary, was remediated and rehabilitated in a joint effort between the Queensland Government CHEM Unit, the Mount Isa City Council and Mount Isa Mines.

The stage two work is being carried out in the Leichhardt River for the next five weeks, Monday to Saturday from 7am to 6pm, between Isa Street Bridge in the south and Alma Street Crossing in the north.