I figured I best post about the mines before time gets too far away from me! This post is more photos than facts!
From what I hear the mines only employ around 2500 people, less than half of previous times. Of course the workings of a mine are refined by technology as with everything else. The mines extend the full length of the city….on the western side…also known as ‘mine side’. The mines entrance would be less than a kilometre from town and the hospital for that matter.
There are several mines within ‘Mount Isa Mines’, both open cut and the underground mines….you can sort of drive in and around….its impossible to establish what anything is….im sure the system works well, but to me of course its just heaps of buildings and processing things….hopefully you’ll get the picture as to how big it is!
Each night we feel the BOOM! as the mine has it explosions for the day….some days you barely notice and on others the buildings shake and windows rattle. You can almost set your watch to it. Explosions also occur in the morning, however they aren’t felt as often. We have several smoke stacks, but only one seems to power on. The poof that blows out of it runs 24/7. The position of the mine and the city, generally has it blowing away from the population, but the pollution just sits on the horizon. Stars are few and far between unfortunately.
Lead is a massive issue here. Having just written a paper on lead poisoning here, it is interesting to see people risking their health to stay here. We test children through blood tests to check lead levels and there are several seemingly fruitless health promotion campaigns educating people to wash their childrens hands etc. Of course there isn’t a water tank in sight…water is full of chemicals too…and lead….most people live on bottled water, literally. They don’t even put it on the shelves at the store….you just take from the stock on the floors. Its not healthy normal living thats for sure. But it is beautiful!
Pluggers in Paradise 