Substantial disturbance

Although an individual mining activity may not appear to cause much disturbance to an area, the combined effect of several adjacent activities may result in substantial disturbance.

Activities causing substantial disturbance

The following activities, individually or in combination, can cause significant or substantial disturbance to an area:

• land clearing
• earthworks such as cutting, filling, excavating, or trenching
• above-ground works such as building access tracks and roads, buildings, bridges, railways, pipelines, telephone and power lines, conveyors and airstrips
• underground works such as digging tunnels and wells or laying pipelines, conduits and cables
• water works such as building dams, impoundments, canals, drainage works, or the alteration of river or creek banks, water courses and shore lines
• extraction of resources from the surface of the land, underground, riverbeds or undersea mining and quarrying
• stockpiling of materials such as ore, overburden, waste materials and by-products
• exploration works involving seismic lines, drill pads, drill holes - including vacuum, auger and RAB, grids, tracks and costeans
• active remote sensing and seismic techniques in water
• establishing a camp for the workers
• drilling and blasting
• any activity that is likely to have a significant impact on plants or animals.

What you should do

If your proposed work program involves one or more of the above actions, you must apply for a mining authorisation.

You may also need to undertake a formal environmental impact assessment process.

For advice on minimising the environmental impacts of exploration, mining and extractive activities, read the environmental advisory notes.