They Mine Their Own Business
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday January 16, 1999
Would the last miner to leave Coober Pedy's opal wasteland please turn off the lights?
Opal mining's soldiers of fortune are trekking in droves to Lambina Station at Marla, more than 200 kilometres to the north, emptying the so-called "opal capital of the world" of most of its good operators.
An estimated 300 are off staking claims on Lambina's new field, 450 kilometres south of Alice Springs.
All the stony, treeless desert at Coober Pedy has to show for 83 years of precious stone pillage is an eerie moonscape of unfilled shafts and thousands of mullock heaps of spent limestone and mudstone, extending for 40 kilometres around the outback South Australian town.
The wasteland is useless because of the effect opal mining has had on the environment, according to the owner of the 3,500 square kilometre Lambina holding, Mr Mark Williams.
As pastoral custodian of opal mining's latest El Dorado, Mr Williams wants to protect his country from the damage caused by miners' lack of responsibility for their claims.
His hard line has forced miners to address the issue by grouping together under the South Australian Opal Miners' Association and fix the damage they do to his country.
Before claim pegs can be lifted on Lambina - or a new claim staked - all holes have to be filled in. "Bureaucrats have had this power all the time," Mr Williams said. "There is absolutely no necessity for the dreadful environmental messes created at Coober Pedy, Andamooka, Mintabie and the sprinkling of other opal mining centres on the Great Artesian Basin."
The rehabilitation of claims on Lambina is paying dividends. "The revegetation rate is astounding. Cattle are back grazing rehabilitated areas."
Like the gold rushes of old, the opal hopefuls arrive at Lambina with dollar signs in their eyes.
"They are here to find colour," Mr Williams said. "But most will be broke before they leave, having sunk up to $10,000 in diesel fuel into big open cuts, forced to sell their gear if they don't make the big find."
The ups and downs of economic growth in Asian, European and United States markets - and the vagaries of the benchmark gold market - have hit opal prices hard, according to the chairman of the South Australian Opal Miners' Association, Mr Neville Hyatt.
One of Coober Pedy's stayers, miner Mr Dean Harris, said: "In the good times, good colour was worth up to $7,000 an ounce. Prices are a third of what they used to be. It's the only job I know where you pay to go to work."
Mr Harris is among those who simply cannot afford the big excavation equipment and new prospecting drill gear required for Lambina's harder ground, so he and others will stay put.
Coober Pedy will survive, its tourism and regional business infrastructure ensuring a bright commercial future as the South Australian outback's main service centre. But its future as the opal capital of the world is under threat.
"I'm certainly not going to die here," Mr Harris said. "The guts have been taken out of the place, in more ways than one."
© 1999 Sydney Morning Herald
