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Aboriginal elders and environmental activists are calling for mining in the Lachlan Catchment of New South Wales to be halted as the Wyangala Dam dries up.

“Mines use a lot of water and they should be closed at least temporarily while the water crisis continues. Wyangala Dam on the Lachlan River is drying up quickly. According to NSW Water Information this morning, the level of Wyangala Dam was only at 5.4 per cent yesterday, a drop from 5.5 per cent on Saturday. This is one of the lowest dam levels since 1970. Only in 1983 was the dam lower than this at 3 per cent”, said Wiradjuri Elder Neville Williams.

“When making the decision on 23 October to halve water flows from the Wyangala Dam on 1 November 2009, authorities have apparently ignored mine water use in the Central West. As the summer hots up, the dam will dry out even quicker if there isn’t any good rain soon. With the spectre of towns and farms without water, we can’t understand why mines and exploration projects in the Lachlan Catchment are not being closed down.

 “Authorities say the dam could be dry by April 2010, towns would be without water and many farmers in the Lachlan Valley with failed crops and no water either. This area is the breadbasket of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. I live in Cowra one of the towns that could soon be without water. There are many mines and mining exploration projects going on in the Central West. Just how much water are they using and where is it going to come from? For example, it is understood that the Cadia mine at Orange is using up to 20 megalitres of water per day.

“At the Lake Cowal gold mine, 47 kilometres from West Wyalong, up to 17 megalitres per day are being used in mining operations that involve the use of cyanide to process gold from ore. The consent conditions for the mine allow a total of 30 000 megalitres of water for the current 13-year life of the mine. The mining company did a deal with the Jemalong Irrigation Company about two years ago for up to 3500 megalitres of water per year for five years from Lachlan River water.

“Surface and groundwater systems are connected. The mining company also takes groundwater from a borefield north-east of the mine. A special arrangement as the Lachlan groundwater resource is under embargo. The water for the Lake Cowal mine also comes from the Bland Paleochannel that also provides water for towns like Quandialla. A 30-metre groundwater level drop in the area in October 2006 had landowners anxiously watching their domestic and groundwater supplies.

“Barrick wants to expand the mine at Lake Cowal. It’s very hard to find out just how much water they are using and will need to keep on operating for up to 24 years. Estimates from the Environmental Defenders’ Office range from about 30 000 megalitres for the current mine to possibly 55 per cent more. That is 73 730 megalitres up to 2029 for an expanded mine. Two large unlined tailings ponds, three kilometres from the lake, hold cyanide-laden toxic mine wastes. If the expansion goes ahead, the height of the walls on these ponds will be raised to take more toxic wastes. It is probably inevitable that leakage from the ponds will make its way into the water system, affecting an already limited resource.

“A lot of people don’t know that nearly 80 per cent of gold is used for jewellery––to feed human greed for expensive adornment. The price of gold has shot over US$1060 per ounce but water is priceless. Water for drinking and growing food is essential. You can’t drink or eat gold.

“The Central West has been in drought for at least seven years. So what is going to happen? The authorities say that mines provide jobs and they do but mining jobs are often short term. We should be concentrating on developing jobs in the renewable energy sector not keeping mines open in the worst drought in history,” Mr Williams said.

A Senate Committee has tabled a grim assessment of the commercial forestry plantation on the Tiwi Islands.

The acacia plantation takes up almost 30,000 hectares and was facing criticism long before the collapse in May of the corporate partner in the project, Great Southern Limited.

Earlier this month, the Tiwi Land Council took over the plantation.

It was hoped the trees would return almost $700,000 annually to traditional owners.

But the Senate inquiry has found the plantation will be completely unprofitable without a massive injection of cash.

The inquiry found major hurdles to selling any of the timber, including the high costs of maintaining the plantation, a need for major infrastructure before harvesting can start and problems with the trees themselves, which are not growing properly.

The Green’s spokeswoman on Indigenous affairs, Rachel Siewert, says the scheme was badly planned.

“We are not convinced that this project is sustainable,” she said.

“We are very concerned that it will not provide the returns that were hoped for when this project first started.

“And given the fact that the proponents of the project in the first place have gone into receivership and the administrators say that the project is unviable, I think that raises very major concerns about the future of that project.”

The traditional owners of the northern Flinders Ranges say a South Australian Government plan to manage the environment in the region is a kick in the guts to their native title agreement.

The plan identifies areas where mining will be restricted and areas where mining can still exist.

The vice-chairman of the Adnyamathana Traditional Lands Association, Michael Anderson, says the group has been negotiating with the Government about land use agreements for mining and the environmental management plan appears to override those agreements.

“Have we wasted all these resources, talking about these issues with our people, on our land, then to be coming up with something else that we’ve got to spend more money on to look at?” he said.

“Hearing these things through the media is very disappointing for the Adnyamathana people because we deserve more respect than that.

“We are the traditional owners of the area, we will be there whether this Government succeeds or not.”

A Wiradjuri elder says an Indigenous community may start tapping for groundwater as it prepares for the drying up of the Lachlan River.

Daily water releases from Wyangala Dam into the Lachlan River will soon be slashed to conserve water, stopping the flow downstream of Condobolin.

Flo Grant says she is fairly confident the small community of Murrin Bridge, near Lake Cargelligo, will be able to access groundwater when the river is dry.

“I also believe that there probably will be flushes coming from once the river starts to bank up, but I think later on if the dam doesn’t get water into it they’ll probably have to back it up from further up the river so pray for a lot of rain,” she said.

A group of educators and academics say they have started lobbying the Commonwealth over a Northern Territory Government policy to limit bilingual education.

The Australian Society for Indigenous Languages says the policy forces all remote Aboriginal schools to teach classes in English for the first four hours of the school day.

The Territory Government says Indigenous languages can still be spoken during all classes and learning English is vital for future employment, education and training.

But one of the academics opposing the move, Professor Charles Grimes, says the Australian Society for Indigenous Languages is now appealing directly to federal ministers because the policy defies research and national and international trends in education.

“It actually defies commonsense,” he said.

“The very basic principle of education is you work from what’s known to what is unknown – that’s commonsense.

“Another bit of commonsense is children learn best in the language that they know.”

He says he is hearing first hand that the policy is not working.

“As I talk to teachers in remote communities pretty much all of them say the same thing,” he said.

“They say after four hours there are no children left in the classroom.”

He says in one case, a school at Yirrkala in Arnhem Land will actively resist the policy, despite pressure to conform.

“The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People says that Indigenous people, minority people, have the right to decide the way that they have their own education, including the role of their own language in that.

“And they’ve had a lot of pressure put on them to tow the Government’s line.”

The Government says assistant teachers are available in classrooms to interpret and translate in Indigenous languages.

The Australian Greens today introduced legislation in the Senate designed to restore the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) in the Northern Territory after the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin failed to meet her second self-imposed deadline to deliver on this promise.

“It was and continues to be a disgrace that the NT Emergency Response specifically excludes the operation of the RDA,” said Senator Rachel Siewert today.

“After almost two years in power and a review of the NTER which recommended the RDA be re-instated immediately, the Government has not acted. This delay in re-instating the basic human rights of the Indigenous people of the Northern Territory is inexcusable and must be rectified.”

“There is no doubt that the NTER legislation, in suspending the operation of the RDA, is contrary to Australia’s international obligations and is harming our reputation overseas,” said Senator Siewert.

“Quite frankly, this is an international embarrassment.”

“A quick glance at the Greens’ Bill shows clearly that it is a simple matter to restore the RDA. Where the Minister appears to be stuck is in trying to find a way to reconcile her desire to over-ride the fundamental human rights of Aboriginal Australians in the NT through compulsory welfare quarantining and mandatory leases with our international obligations not to discriminate on the basis of race.”

“Quite simply she cannot keep the hard-line elements of the NT intervention and properly restore the RDA – this is not a cake that she can have and eat too.”

“Restoring the RDA is the morally and ethically correct response to the continued suspension of basic human rights in the Northern Territory, and a first step towards righting the wrongs of successive governments,” she concluded.

The Queensland Government says securing 40-year leases remains a priority in a program to build more than 1,000 homes in remote Indigenous communities.

A remote Indigenous land and infrastructure office has been set up in Queensland to accelerate the nine-year federal and State Government program.

Premier Anna Bligh says Doomadgee, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, is the only community so far to agree to leases, with three homes already being built.

She says money is being spent on other projects as other Indigenous communities consider the housing offer.

“My Government has recently approved $65 million for a suite of municipal infrastructure projects in the remote service delivery national partnership communities of Mornington Island, Doomadgee, Aurukun and Hopevale – it is through the work of the program office that projects such as this will be delivered much more quickly,” she said.

Ms Bligh says the State Government has faced a number of challenges to build or renovate more than 1,000 homes over nine years.

She says there are problems with poor town planning and a lack of building infrastructure, and secure title for the homes will be a priority.

“A key task will be to negotiate with councils to secure 40-year leases over land and leases – this means regardless of native title the State Government will be able to maintain the homes that it builds,” she said.

An application to expand an Indigenous hostel north of Rockhampton has been approved.

While the Mayor was away earlier this month, the council voted to reject the upgrade of the Milbi Hostel at Etna Creek.

But at yesterday’s council meeting it decided to support the plan.

Mayor Brad Carter says while the issue had been discussed by council, a formal decision was not made until yesterday.

He says the hostel must now ensure that it meets legal planning and social obligations.

Etna Creek resident Trevor Rufus says he is disappointed with the council’s change of mind and an appeal is likely.

He says he was surprised when the Mayor said there were problems with the original decision that rejected the Milbi expansion.

“The meeting was run by councillor Swadling, she was conferring the whole way through the meeting with the CEO who was sitting right next to her,” Mr Rufus said.

“The public gallery left that meeting all with the understanding that the application had been lost and suddenly we get legal advice [that] there was no decision made, it needs to go to the vote again.

“So it was very surprising and a little bit suspicious really.”

The Darwin City Council will now read an acknowledgment of country before every meeting.

After more than a year of consultation with the Larrakia Nation, the council has come up with a three line statement that will be read before the Lord’s Prayer.

It acknowledges the Larrakia people and promises to care for the environment.

“We the members of Darwin City Council acknowledge that we are meeting on Larrakia Country,” it says.

“We pay our respects to all Larrakia people both past and present.

“We are committed to working together with the Larrakia to care for this land and sea for our shared future.”

It is more than a year-and-a-half since the Prime Minister’s apology to the thousands of Indigenous Australians who were taken away from their families.

Many of the Stolen Generations welcomed the apology but for some the words have not been met by action.

Now a group of men who were taken to the notorious Kinchela Boys’ Home on the mid-north coast of New South Wales have developed a plan that they say offers practical steps to heal the wounds of the past.

The group reunited yesterday in Sydney’s Redfern and as the smoking ceremony began the old boys of Kinchela remembered a painful past.

Lester Maher was taken away from his family when he was four years old.

He was one of up to 600 children locked up at the Kinchela Boys’ Home between 1924 and 1970.

“We never knew who we were. I never knew my mother. I didn’t know my father. Our language was taken from us. If we tried to use any other Aboriginal language at Kinchela we were bashed,” he said.

“For me personally, being in that place was a very dreadful time for all of us and even now it brings back very sad memories.”

Mr Maher ran away when he was nine. He was severely punished when he was taken back.

“Hendricks the manager, he was a drunk too. Anyway he took me up to the office and he said, ‘Put your hand out,’ and I say, ‘No. Put your hand out? I’m not putting my hand out for you, you white so-and-so,’” he said.

“And with that he stripped my clothes off and give me the biggest flogging of my life. I’ll never forget. I laid in bed for a week.”

Cecil Bowden was taken away from his family in Cowra when he was 16 months old. His mother had died and his father was away fighting in World War II.

He says the Kinchela Boys’ Home was a brutal place.

“When anyone ever got into strife they’d send them down the line, about 60 or 70 boys,” he said.

“They’d strip them off first. They’d have to walk the line and 60 or 70 boys would have to punch them, punch that person as hard as they, just to satisfy those people who were running the home.

“And we were threatened, if you didn’t punch hard enough you’d have to join them down the line. So by the end of the line you were bleeding and black and blue all over.”

The humiliation did not end there, according to radio broadcaster Paulette Whitton.

“I don’t know how many of you people know this but upon entering KBH, the boys were also ripped of their identity,” he said.

“They had no name once they entered the gates of KBH. They were known as a number. My dad’s number was 31.”

The men had gathered to mark the launch of what they have called a healing plan for themselves and other members of the Stolen Generations.

Pastor Ray Minniecon from World Vision Australia was in charge of the Kinchela project.

“It’s about reconstructing a whole identity. It’s about reconnecting to all that has been taken in terms of family, land, culture, language, all of those kind of things, community,” he said.

“One of the tragedies, other tragedies of the forced removal policies is that it’s just not what was taken from them in terms of their own personal identities.

“But it’s a theft of our future because those young men would have been the leaders. They would have been the carriers of our culture. You take that out of the community, you’ve stolen the future as well.

“So what this plan is trying to do is say, ‘OK, let’s just try and reconstruct that future as well. I mean we can’t go back to what we were but we can try to develop the programs and things that we know are important to us.’”

The plan will also see the men’s stories recorded and counselling services and family reunions offered but for Lester Maher there can be no progress without compensation.

“Most of the boys are looking for compensation and rightfully so. I think we deserve it. All the things we went through,” he said.

“Rudd said sorry but it’s not good enough, you know. Anyone can say sorry. But then in the same breath he said you’re not getting compensation so we’re going to go for that.”