INVISIBLE. NOT HARMLESS.
Mine dust, drinking water and the risks Gonneville must address before approval
In the Northern Valleys, we welcome the rain.
For many families, rainwater isn't a luxury. It's the water we drink, cook with, wash in and depend on every day.
Our roofs collect it. Our gutters carry it. Our tanks store it.
But what if future mining-related dust settles on those roofs?
What could that dust contain? Where could it travel? And how would we know whether our drinking water remained safe?
Our drinking water cannot be put at risk without proper assessment, demonstrated safeguards and clear accountability.
GONNEVILLE WOULD GENERATE DUST
The proposed Gonneville Project includes a major mining and processing development, with a potential operating life of approximately 30 years.
Drilling, blasting, crushing, stockpiling, earthworks and heavy vehicle movements can all generate airborne particles.
Chalice's environmental referral already identifies dust as a potential environmental impact requiring assessment and management.
But describing these emissions simply as "dust" tells us very little.
Some particles are large enough to see. Others are fine enough to remain suspended in the air and be inhaled.
Their potential health significance depends on their size, composition, concentration and duration of exposure.
What matters is not just how much dust could be generated, but what it could contain and where it could end up.
NOT ALL DUST IS HARMLESS
Gonneville is a polymetallic deposit containing nickel, copper, cobalt, palladium and platinum.
Mining activities may also generate respirable crystalline silica where silica-bearing materials are disturbed, as well as fine particles from diesel engines and machinery.
The presence of these substances in a deposit or mining environment does not establish that dangerous concentrations would reach surrounding properties.
That must be determined through appropriate testing, modelling and assessment.
But the potential hazards are sufficiently important that they cannot simply be dismissed as ordinary dust.
WORKPLACE EXPOSURE LIMITS ARE TIGHTENING
From 1 December 2026, Western Australia will adopt new Workplace Exposure Limits for airborne contaminants.
Several limits for metals relevant to Gonneville's deposit are being reduced:
- Nickel metal: From 1 to 0.1 mg/m³ under the revised nickel metal and insoluble compounds category.
- Cobalt: From 0.05 to 0.02 mg/m³, with the revised category covering metal and inorganic compounds.
- Platinum metal: From 1 to 0.1 mg/m³.
A new workplace limit of 0.01 mg/m³ will also apply to diesel particulate matter, measured as respirable elemental carbon.
These limits apply to specific airborne substances in workplaces. They are not community air-quality or drinking-water standards, and do not establish what contaminants would be present in Gonneville's dust.
Nevertheless, they highlight why airborne contaminants must be properly identified and assessed.
If specific airborne contaminants require stringent controls to protect workers, what assessment will establish the potential exposure of families living around the proposed mine?
WHEN YOUR ROOF IS YOUR WATER SUPPLY
This is where the risk becomes deeply personal.
Western Australia's Department of Health explicitly recognises that dust and other residues from mining and industrial activities can be carried onto roofs and into household rainwater tanks.
It warns that pollutants may become concentrated in the water.
For Northern Valleys households, the potential pathway is straightforward:
Mining-related dust → roofs and gutters → rainfall → drinking-water tanks.
Imagine discovering that your household water supply requires testing because potentially hazardous industrial residues may have entered your tank.
Would you continue drinking it while waiting for results?
What would you give your children to drink?
And where would you obtain an alternative supply if testing established the water was unsafe?
For many rural and rural residential families, there is no scheme water connection to fall back on.
This is not merely an issue of inconvenience or dusty rooftops.
It is about protecting a household's primary drinking-water supply.
WIND DOES NOT RESPECT MINE BOUNDARIES
Wind direction and strength influence where airborne dust travels and where it settles.
Strong easterly winds experienced in the region are particularly relevant to properties west of Gonneville. Changing conditions can also carry material towards communities in other directions.
The environmental assessment must therefore consider surrounding residential properties, not simply concentrations at the mine boundary.
It must examine fine particles, potentially hazardous substances, dust deposition and the implications for household rainwater catchments.
Monitoring visible dust alone would not answer all these questions.
WHO WOULD PROTECT OUR WATER?
What happens if monitoring eventually identifies project-related contaminants in household rainwater?
Who determines whether the water is safe?
Who pays for independent testing?
Who provides replacement drinking water while contamination is investigated?
Who pays for cleaning or replacing affected roofs, gutters, tanks and associated infrastructure?
And who accepts responsibility if project-related contamination makes a household's primary water supply unsuitable for drinking?
These arrangements should be established before mining operations begin, not negotiated after a contamination event.
Independent baseline testing before construction is also essential to determining whether any future changes can be reliably attributed to the project.
Without credible baseline evidence, disputes over the source of contamination could leave affected households facing uncertainty, costs and delays.
THE ERD MUST PROVIDE THE EVIDENCE
Gonneville is not an operating mine. Its proposed development remains subject to environmental assessment.
The Environmental Review Document (ERD), when released, will be examined in detail with independent environmental consultants.
Of particular importance will be the assumptions, data and methods used to assess dust generation, chemical composition, dispersion, deposition, community exposure and drinking-water protection.
We will also be examining the proposed monitoring arrangements, intervention thresholds and contingency plans.
The fact that a risk has been modelled does not automatically establish that it has been adequately addressed.
The evidence must demonstrate that appropriate protections can be delivered in practice, not merely proposed on paper.
OUR DRINKING WATER IS NOT NEGOTIABLE
We are not alleging that Gonneville has already contaminated drinking-water supplies, nor claiming that future contamination is inevitable.
We are identifying a recognised potential exposure pathway that must be rigorously investigated before environmental approval is considered.
The burden should not fall on families to discover contamination, prove its source and fight for a safe alternative water supply after a mine has commenced operations.
It is reasonable to expect the proponent to demonstrate how foreseeable risks will be prevented or controlled, how compliance will be independently verified and what happens if safeguards fail.
No family should be expected to accept an inadequately assessed risk to its drinking water simply because a mining development is proposed nearby.
In the Northern Valleys, rain is life.
And protecting the water that falls on our roofs must come before mining production.
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SOURCES
1. WA Department of Health — Mining and Industrial Health Risks
2. WA Department of Health — Standard Drinking Water Test
3. WorkSafe WA — New Airborne Exposure Limits
4. Safe Work Australia — Changes to Workplace Exposure Limits