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Diversified mining and marketing company Glencore said on Tuesday that it had noted the comments made by the Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority (AAPA) in relation to the company's McArthur River Mine (MRM) at an Australian parliamentary inquiry public hearing. "We want to be very clear that we have no intention of physically interfering with or damaging any Indigenous sacred site on our mining lease at MRM," the company stated in a release to Mining Weekly. "We operate under stringent conditions set down through Northern Territory and Federal legislation, as well as conditions of Aboriginal Areas Protection Authority certificates, designed to protect sacred sites.
"We understand our obligation to protect Sacred Sites on our mining lease and we are meeting these obligations. "Glencore is committed to working together and considering the views of all stakeholders, particularly our local traditional owners and custodians. "MRM will continue to engage with AAPA to ensure we have the necessary approvals for any future mining plans. "We are committed to operating a safe, responsible and environmentally sustainable mining operation," Glencore reiterated in the release.
Earlier, a Reuters report out of Melbourne quoted the head of a Northern Territory oversight authority as telling the inquiry that expansion at the MRM lead and zinc mine was putting several sacred Aboriginal sites at risk, including an historical quarry. MRM last year received approval from the territory's mining minister to proceed with expansion at the mine, 670 km southeast of Darwin, including doubling the size of its waste dump. The approval came amid greater scrutiny of miners' dealings with Indigenous groups after Rio Tinto destroyed ancient rockshelters in Western Australia for an iron-ore mine expansion last year. "The scale of the mine expansion raises some quite serious questions about the maintenance and protection of sacred sites on that lease and also access to those places for custodians into the future," AAPA CE Benedict Scambary was quoted as saying.
Reuters reported that Glencore had applied to almost double the height of its waste rock dump to 140 m from 80 m and approval currently rested with the Northern Territory mining minister. It is currently mining without exceeding the height restrictions. Scambary told the parliamentary inquiry into Rio Tinto's destruction of rockshelters last year that the MRM waste dump expansion could impact adjacent sacred sites, and that Glencore did not have proper authority from appropriate elders to do so. Sites at risk included one related to creation stories, known as barramundi dreaming, as well as a quarry where stone tools were made, Scambary said.