Insuring the environment – who pays when mining goes wrong?

This past Christmas, Darwin waited with unnecessary nervousness as Cyclone Grant developed to our north. It missed us, but on Boxing Day it dumped 385mm of rain into the Edith River.

The resulting flood washed away a railway embankment and sections of a goods train carrying copper concentrate from Oz Minerals’ Prominent Hill mine in South Australia to the Port of Darwin.

More than 1,000 tonnes of copper concentrate was spilled. The rail wagons are covered only by tarpaulins and derailed by floodwaters tracking a well-forecast cyclone.
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