Australia Denies Mine Leak Delay Linked to ReportSYDNEY, May 5 (Reuters) - Australia's environment minister on Friday dismissed claims by an environmental group that a delay in reporting a leak of contaminated water at a uranium mine was linked to a government report to the World Heritage Bureau.
Australia is investigating why miner Energy Resources of Australia Ltd waited nearly a month before disclosing a leak of manganese-contaminated water from its Ranger uranium mine, which is surrounded by World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.
ERA has said it knew of the leak as early as late March or early April, but did not notify government authorities until April 28.
An environmental report on any impact of the mine on the park land prepared by Environment Minister Robert Hill submitted April 15 to the Paris-based World Heritage Bureau makes no mention of the leak, a spokesman for the minister said.
"While the Commonwealth environment minister was giving ERA the all clear, the company was failing to disclose damaging information about the full impacts of their operations," Dave Sweeney, a campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), said.
A World Heritage panel of 21 countries last July agreed unanimously that the mine was not harmful to the parkland.
A spokesman for Minister Hill called the ACF allegations "nonsense."
He said the report was not scheduled for review until July, by which time the bureau will have been made aware of the leak anyway.
ERA's chief executive, Bob Cleary, called the delay "unacceptable" in a May 2 statement to the Australian Stock Exchange, where the company's shares are traded, but has offered no explanation.
"The local Kakadu community, the responsible authorities and the shareholders all have a right to know of such an event," ACF's Sweeney said.
An ERA spokesman told Reuters it did not believe the leak was big enough to warrant its immediate disclosure. Environmentalists and some local Aboriginal communities have been waging a political battle to have the mine closed.
No damage had so far been detected from the leak, local and federal officials have said.
Investigations so far by government scientists had been restricted to a 25-acre (10-hectare) environmental buffer zone designed to capture any hazardous discharges from the mine.
Greenpeace believes investigators should look further afield and claims water contaminated with manganese has leaked from the site since the start of the region's wet season last December. It warned that the area also was likely to suffer pollution from a range of contaminants included in the toxic run-off, possibly even uranium.
Each year, more than 250,000 tourists visit Kakadu, known for its tropical climate and abundant population of crocodiles and other wildlife.
Results from routine water monitoring in the Magela Creek, which runs downstream from the mine, showed water quality standards had not been affected, according to Industry and Resource Minister Nick Minchin, who also is looking for answers from ERA for the delay