Goldmine company reveals ambitions to expand Tyrone site

AFTER being given the go-ahead to drill three new exploratory boreholes north of a site several miles outside Omagh, a goldmining company has expressed an intent to potentially expand local operations in the future.

Representatives from Galantas Gold Corporation were told by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council’s Planning Committee last week that a new planning application would not be required in order to legally carry out a series of investigative digs in agricultural land beside their Cavanacaw site.

Instead, the miners will be allowed to rely on existing development rights granted in 1995 and extended in 2017.

The Cavenacaw goldmine has faced significant challenges from its earliest days, including an opposition campaign from part of the local community, a judicial review, and a court case following a near fatal accident when in 2018 ‘too many explosives’ caused 150 tonnes rock to fall, narrowly missing a worker in an underground shaft.

However, representatives from the international company, which now seems set to drill three more 350 metre deep boreholes in a bid to find more valuable minerals, claim the miners now enjoy a friendly relationship with their Clanabogan neighbours and that local opposition had largely disappeared.

Making the company’s case for extending operations, Dr Sarah Coulter, who, according to her colleague, ‘knows one end of a cow from the other’, said, “The drilling will utilise a closed loop system, using clean water which will be recirculated, so that there will be no leakage to the surrounding environment.

“All our drill cuttings will be retained… and sent to a licenced waste disposal facility.

“At the end of the drilling we will plug the holes, sealing them at bedrock.”

Limit noise

Dr Coulter also said that measures will be taken to limit noise created by the drilling, something that will be particularly important given that there are two dwellings in close proximity to the proposed works: 37 Aghee Road is about 120 metres from the nearest hole, and 40 Falsky Road is 200 metres south of the closest hole.

Addressing the same concern, Ronan Conway, who has been working on the Cavanacaw site since the late 2000s, said the noise produced will be no louder than the sound of a ‘tractor ticking over two fields away’.

Drilling will be in operation from 7am to 7pm, Monday to Friday. On Saturday, the working window will be shorter, from 7am to 1pm.

And on Sunday the drilling will come to a halt.

The Galantas representatives were candid about their ambition to ‘expand the resource’, admitting that they are following a theory that a vein of gold runs north from the current site.

“(We are boring these holes) with the view of expanding the resource. It is unlikely this would become an open pit, because this is a deeper section.

“It would be more natural to extend underground,” they said.

Any enlargement of the site beyond these exploratory holes would require a full planning application, which would be subject to all the relevant standards associated with that process.

Explaining why that is not required for these three holes, the Planning Committee said that it would be inappropriate on the basis of the relevant legislation, given, among other considerations, that the work will not affect any area of outstanding beauty, it will not impact any listed buildings, and that it is unlikely to constitute a serious nuisance for any residents, hospitals or schools.