The company behind a controversial mineral sands mine project that was rejected due to environmental risks has rebranded in an attempt to revive the proposal for a site in eastern Victoria.
Kalbar Operations, now known as Gippsland Critical Minerals, is pushing ahead with its Fingerboards Critical Minerals Project that proposes a mine in Glenaladale, near the Mitchell River, 275 kilometres from Melbourne.
The 16.75-square-kilometre mine was rejected by the state's planning minister, Richard Wynne, in November 2021 due to its proximity to the horticulture industry and unacceptable risk to the environment.
Gippsland Critical Minerals chief executive Jozsef Patarica said the company had been reviewing the project over the past 14 months and was working to address the issues raised in the environmental assessment.
"We've looked at a number of different things in terms of the footprint buffer zones that we can build in, obviously our impact on water, so by changing our throughput rates, we reduce water consumption, as well as the impacts related to noise and dust," he said.
"It'll effectively mean that we don't mine as much of the deposit as we had previously planned, so the footprint will be smaller."
The proposed mine plans to extract zircon and rare earth minerals for use in the production of magnets for electric vehicles and wind turbines, as well as batteries and other sources of renewable energy.
Mr Patarica said the company was continuing community consultations, which began last year.
"The plan would be to obviously reapply for a mining licence at the appropriate time, as well as a work plan that we'll need with the regulators and a development licence," he said.
"It'd be very important for the local economy as far as providing opportunities too, for jobs and growth for businesses."
Community opposed
Community group Mine Free Glenaladale is opposed to the project and has spent years organising protests, analysing the project's environmental effects statements, and lobbying governments against the project.
Spokesperson Debbie Carruthers said the environmental impacts of the proposed mine were too significant, and even if Gippsland Critical Minerals were to adjust the project, it would not be approved.
"It's nonsense for [them] to be suggesting that they can address the fact. The mine is so close to the Mitchell River," she said.
"The location of the Mitchell River can't change; the location of the horticulture and agricultural industries in the area can't change.
"They're just immediately downwind from the mine and will be subject to radioactive and cancer-causing dust and particulate matters."
Ms Carruthers said the company should consider alternative locations that would pose less of a risk to the environment and surrounding industries.
"Those minerals and rare earths are available in other places that are in a less sensitive and toxic environment so close to other major industries and where so many people live," she said.
"This is the wrong location for a mine and the government inquiry found that it was the wrong location for a mine."
'Harmful to local economy'
Gippsland Critical Minerals predicts the project will provide around 200 jobs in East Gippsland and provide incentives for people to relocate to the region.
Ms Carruthers said a government-appointed inquiry found the mine's effects on the local and regional economy through disrupted agriculture and horticulture would have an adverse effect on jobs in the region.
"Talking about jobs is nonsense because it will impact on jobs in those major industries," she said.
"The economy doesn't need those jobs because we can't fill jobs at the moment.
"Kelbar, rebranded as Gippsland Critical Minerals to gain better acceptance of their project, is inappropriately trying to mine in an area where it shouldn't mine."
Kim Martin, an organic farmer in the nearby town of Lindenow, said it was "crazy" and "ridiculous" that the project had been allowed to progress to this stage.
"We've got a really successful food industry here in the Lindenow Valley growing fantastic products, value-adding and very successfully," he said.
"Any possible threat to that industry that exists today is going to be taken very seriously.
"We need clean soils, clean water and clean air to produce ready-to-eat salads and spinach bags."
Mr Martin said if the project was approved it was be a "potential disaster" because the proposed mine was located "a stones throw away" from the Mitchell River.
"It's the top of the catchment that leads right down through the Lindenow food bowl out into the Gippsland Lakes," he said.
