A PROMINENT Bendigo historian has warned against complacency about possible high heavy metal levels at the new Huntly Recreation reserve.
In January, the Bendigo Weekly revealed the City of Greater Bendigo council had not done any heavy metal testing before constructing the new sporting grounds.
That was despite anecdotal and historical evidence of high arsenic levels in the nearby soil as a result of historical mining activity.
Council’s presentation and assets director Jos Duivenvoorden said there was no evidence to suggest heavy metal levels would be higher than elsewhere, and even if they were, the cost of removing it could outweigh the benefits.
Dr Geoff Russell is a former La Trobe University lecturer and has written many books and papers on the history of the area.
He told the Weekly the area surrounding the new recreation reserve could contain more than just arsenic.
“Numerous heavy floods in Bendigo’s history would have also sent choking plugs of puddlers’ sludge down the Bendigo Creek, flooding out over the flatter expanses around Epsom, near the present-day sewerage works (next to the sporting grounds),” he said. “Certainly this sludge would have contained mercury, a favourite additive used to amalgamate fine gold particles in crushed ore.
“Arsenic may have also washed down and settled on the farmland there, as an escaped by-product of later tailings dump processing, popular across the Bendigo field in the first half of the 20th century.
“It’s an unfortunate legacy we inherit from our mining past, and one that we need to manage very carefully – especially around children, and our food production areas.”
Dr Russell said the area had a heavy mining past.
“Goldmining commenced around the White Hills area of Bendigo as early as late 1852, and continued in that area and along the Bendigo Creek, north of the field, well into the late 1800s,” he said.
“By the early 1860s there were significant shallow deep-lead mines at Epsom and Huntly, and these flourished once water was laid on to those areas with the construction of the two Grassy Flat Reservoirs (now know as Kennington Reservoir and the filled-in sporting field below it), and the connecting channel from Grassy Flat north to the Huntly and Epsom fields.
“Today we can still see mullock heaps all along the highway there, heading north to Echuca, as evidence of shallow mining. “