OZ Minerals Limited owns and operates the Prominent Hill Copper-Gold Mine, located 140 km southeast of Coober Pedy in far north South Australia. The Prominent Hill mine comprises an open cut mine with an initial 10 year mine-life and an 8 Mtpa conventional grinding and flotation plant to produce high quality copper-gold-silver concentrates, which are exported by road to local customers and by rail to the port of Darwin for shipment on to Southeast Asian smelters._x000D_
Mine and process operations at Prominent Hill are licensed to abstract a water supply of up to 26 ML/d, sourced from a borefield located 40 km and extending to 80 km east of the mine. The arid climate of the broader Prominent Hill region means that groundwater is important for sustaining community and pastoral industries in the region, and security of water rights for third party users is a critically important water management issue posing a significant challenge to the development of Prominent Hill. Depth to water table and the typically high salinity of groundwater in the region means there is little environmental dependence on groundwater within the immediate Project area (mine lease and wellfields). The Prominent Hill mine and associated infrastructure lies within the South Australian Far North Prescribed Wells Area (FNPWA), which was principally defined to ensure the ongoing security of the ecologically, socially and culturally significant GAB springs, of which the closest are found around 150 km northeast of Prominent Hill, and only 50 km northeast of the water supply borefield. Prescribing of the FNPWA meant that OZ Minerals was required to demonstrate to both State and Federal Government agencies that the mine's water supply is independent of that which supports GAB springs and other third party water users in the region. Recognising these potential obstacles, OZ Minerals successfully defined and developed a previously unknown industrial quality groundwater resource, separate from other important groundwater resources in the region that supply community, pastoral and environmental users, ensuring third party water user sustainability._x000D_
FORMAL CITATION:Lyons, D and Hulmes, K, 2010. Sustainable water supply development in Central South Australia, in Proceedings Sustainable Mining 2010, pp 164-173 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)._x000D_