TOM PRICE

Tom Price is something of an oasis, though basically just a mining town.  We drove up a steep, very rough, rocky track to the top of Mount Nameless, which gives 360 degree views over the town, the mines and the countryside.

Mulla mulla in bloom

Mount Nameless

Eric did a tour of  'the mine' and came back full of facts and figures.  He was surprised that I refused to go.  I was surprised that he didn't realise that I hate what they're doing to the land.  The sight of the great rents and gouges in this ancient, fragile land fills me with horror.  As for the miners, I heard an estimate on RN that their campaign against the Resources Rent Tax had cost Australians 100 billion dollars in lost revenue.  As for paying them any more to view their destruction up close, harrumph! I say.

Eric can tell you about Rio Tinto's activities in this spot:

The Tom Price mine is a 8km x 15km site on land which was 'inherited' by Lang Hancock from his father who was one of the early explorers in the area. The ore body was identified by Lang (who also found the asbestos deposit at Wittenoon) and the quality was confimed by Tom Price (a geologist with Kaiser Steel US) who had the contacts to enable development. Originally Hammersly Steel established a company mining town (a drinking town with a mining problem). The town was sold to the local shire for $1 and has been subsequently developed into a town of several thousand with 2 primary schools and 1 secondary school. Rio Tinto now own the mine, and a number of others in the area and the railway line to Karatha.
The mine tour was a confrontation with huge Tonka trucks, ore crushers, piles of ore etc and massive numbers of the extent of the ore body, tonnage extracted daily and transported by the 134 trucks per train load ($3,500,00 per train), accommodation for 800 fly in/ fly out workers and the size of pay packets. Women comprise 40%  the workforce with a large number driving the huge trucks. The trucks have massive 16 litre diesel engines which power a generator as the operation of the truck is all electric.All instructions to the plant operators, truck drivers etc including the bus driver for the tour come by radio from Perth in real time. Rio is predicting a further 50 years extraction for the mine.



Crushing plant