After more than 100 years, the Johns family found their beloved farm in the footprint of a potential new mine.

If approved, they will not be able to live in their home for 36 years while mining at WIM Resource’s new Avonbank mineral sands site is underway due to noise, lights, vibration and “toxic dust”.

Donna Johns said her family’s future is up in the air.

Victoria’s Mining Act allows mining companies to compulsorily acquire land once they have obtained a mining license.

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny’s office said the project’s environmental effects statement was still under review – as it has been for more than a year – meaning it does not It has not yet been determined whether the Dooen mine will continue.

But several farmers told the ABC they had received phone calls from WIM Resource saying the project had been approved and an announcement would follow.

This means that WIM Resource could have the power to compulsorily acquire properties from the Johns family for the life of the mine.

Fifth-generation farmer Chris Johns’ eyes filled with tears as he thought of what might be lost.

“Growing up (here) and spending time with my father and mother, who passed away a few years ago, is very important to me,” Mr Johns said.

Bid documents show that WIM Resource, a China-backed company, would mine 490 tonnes of ore, pay the state $180 million in royalties over the life of the mine and generate nearly $513 million in revenue for the state per year.

Across Victoria, hundreds of exploration permits have been withdrawn, while around 30 retention permits have staked rights to identified deposits in the Wimmera-Mallee.

The Avonbank project is one of 10 mineral sands projects in various stages of planning across the Wimmera-Mallee and NSW border.

Cradle of the lentil industry

Andrew Weidemann is the Grain Producers Australia research and development spokesperson and a local farmer.

Last harvest, Victoria shipped 8.7 million tonnes of grain, including lentils, internationally, according to the state’s food and fiber export summary for 2024.

Of the $5.6 billion generated, Mr Weidemann estimates around $2 billion came from the Wimmera.

The Avonbank mine plans to extract 12.75 million tonnes of heavy mineral concentrate for export to China and for use in electric vehicles, magnets, wind turbines and ceramics.

Mineral sand mining also exposes monazite, a naturally occurring radioactive mineral that can be refined into uranium.

Mr Weidemann is on the Avonbank mine advisory committee and is concerned about potential contamination of products, grain export facilities and an agricultural college.

Supporters say regulations are strict

James Sorahan, executive director of the Victorian branch of the Minerals Council of Australia, said the environmental risk was low because government regulations were strict.

WIM Resource plans to mine a maximum of 400 hectares at any one time before moving on to other holes, so that previous pits can be rehabilitated.

The company said the technique was less invasive and it would only take three years before mined land could be re-sown.

WIM Resource grew barley and lentils in 2021 and 2022 on a trial pit, but local farmers were not convinced.

Gavin Puls dug an enclosure next to the test pit and said the company overestimated the results.

“We know what the harvest looked like when they harvested it, and how ours was next door, and theirs was far away,” he said.

Doubts about rehabilitation and regulation

Farmers also pointed to farmland further south at Kanagulk where the ore was mined between 2004 and 2012.

The main pit at Iluka Resources’ Douglas Mine is still being backfilled after tailings, which included radioactive material from other mines in Victoria and other states, were deposited there.

“It was supposed to be a moving footprint but that never happened, the whole site was mined,” Kanagulk Landcare Group chairman Ian Ross said.

Mr. Ross served on the mine’s environmental review committee.

He added that large stockpiles of soil were also left on private farmland for 15 years instead of the promised three years, compacting the soil beneath and killing all organic and microbial activity.

He explained that in other areas, the backfilled holes were not properly compacted, so the soil subsided and made cultivation impossible.

Iluka Resources showed ABC the pit they began rehabilitating 10 years ago.

“A lot of the land that existed here before we arrived was not suitable for agriculture,” said rare earths manager Daniel McGrath.

He said the company had rehabilitated land in Victoria for 20 years and was confident the private farmland it had returned to the landowner could be farmed.

The owner who rented the land to Iluka told the ABC that more work needed to be done, but declined to comment further as they were bound by a confidentiality agreement.

The Victorian Government’s regulatory body is the Earth Resources Regulator.

A spokesperson said Iluka’s move from a mobile pit to a fully open mine was in line with their environmental effects statement.

Mr. Ross no longer has confidence in the state regulator, given his experience with the Douglas mine.

“For there to be a fair balance, farmers need to be more empowered than they are,” he said.

“You have a well-oiled machine coming into a community with great resources, and every farmer has to try to look at the environmental effects statement and the science and make sure what they’ve been told is true .”

WIM Resource was contacted for comment but did not respond by deadline.

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