Residents, local councils and environmental groups are calling for government intervention as exploration for the critical mineral antimony ramps up on the New South Wales north coast, citing concerns over the potential for contamination of the regional water supply.
A swathe of exploration licences have been approved across the region in recent months, with one mining company, Trigg Minerals, establishing a 30-acre base at Wild Cattle Creek on the Dorrigo Plateau in preparation for drilling work.
Antimony is a silvery, lustrous grey metalloid used in flame retardants, solar panels, alloys, batteries and military equipment. It’s listed as a critical mineral by the US and the European Union. Australia has 7.7% of all global stores but makes up just 2% of all global production, according to Geoscience Australia.
But locals on the Dorrigo Plateau are concerned about the risk of runoff from antimony exploration entering local waterways, particularly given the area’s high rainfall and steep topography.
Antimony levels above the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) were detected on two separate occasions at Shannon Creek Dam, a 30,000 megalitre water source for the Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour regions, in March 2025. It followed torrential rain due to ex-tropical cyclone Alfred, which saw 1,000mm fall in seven days on an area which includes an old antimony mine site.
With the exception of a period of exploratory drilling 15 years ago, the mine has not been active since the 1970s.
The mayor of Clarence Valley council, Ray Smith, called on the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) to provide a briefing to council on the risk of antimony projects in the vicinity of the water catchment.
Trigg Minerals’ managing director, Andre Booyzen, said the results were unrelated to his company’s project.
“We haven’t even started exploring; we are still working on getting access,” he said.
Concerns have also been raised about the storage and transport of antimony samples, after a car and trailer crash on 22 April spilled antimony samples at Bielsdown Bridge in Dorrigo. The EPA confirmed that no debris from the crash entered waterways.
Booyzen confirmed the incident but claimed there was “no danger of anything getting polluted” as the antimony levels in the samples were 0.0001%.
The Wild Cattle Creek area was mined on and off for antimony from 1890 until 1975, when falling prices forced the closure of the local industry.
Trigg’s Wild Cattle Creek project is “probably the biggest undeveloped antimony resource in Australia, if not the world”, Booyzen said. In a presentation to investors, delivered on YouTube, he said the deposit contained 1.5 million tonnes of mineral resource with an average grade of just below 2%.
With prices skyrocketing from US$10,000 a tonne in 2023 to US$60,000 in May 2025, mining companies have their sights on the Dorrigo Plateau once more.
‘Mining is a destroyer of our country’
Shelley Griffin lives next door to the land purchased by Trigg and has a disused mine site on her property.
Anchor Resources, which sold the exploration licence for Wild Cattle Creek to Trigg in 2024, gained access to her land for exploratory drilling in 2009, despite her objections, and was later fined by the state government in 2012 for sub-standard remediation work. Samples from the drilling remain discarded on her property.
She has been receiving letters and calls from Trigg since January but also plans to oppose its bid to access her land.
“When [Anchor] eventually left I thought this was the end, there is no more,” she said. “Every year they haven’t been on I have celebrated.”
Also within the boundaries of Trigg’s exploration licence is the Yammacoona Rural Co-operative, a 550-acre commune founded in 1980.
after newsletter promotion
Founding member Simon Fraser said antimony mining was an “existential threat” to the community.
“Aerial surveys have shown that there are significant deposits underneath Yammacoona,” he said.
Gumbaynggirr elder Uncle Cecil Briggs, 86, said he was terrified of the prospect of mining in an area of special significance for his people.
“Mining is a destroyer of our country,” he said. “It pollutes the water and it contaminates the air.”
The ecologist Mark Graham, a former Coffs Harbour city councillor, said the steep terrain and extreme rainfall of the Dorrigo Plateau made the area particularly vulnerable to run-off from mining activities.
“There is no physical way to contain all runoff in such steep terrain and in extreme rainfall events so pollution of the drinking water catchment with antimony and other toxic elements such as arsenic is inevitable,” he said.
Water test results provided to the local council by Anchor Resources in 2011 from creeks surrounding a historic mine site and contemporary exploration works at Wild Cattle Creek showed arsenic levels above ADWG levels at two sites, with four other sites showing high levels but not above Australian guidelines. Antimony was detected above ADWG levels at three sites.
Booyzen said contamination risks can be effectively managed.
“There is always a danger of runoff from a mine, but you try to minimise the risk as much as you can through proper design, engineering and build quality,” he said.
“Even in huge rainfall events, the design of tailings dams, processing facilities etc means there is no release from the mine site at all.”
Grassroots action group the Clarence Catchment Alliance has called for a permanent ban on all mineral mining activities in the catchment.
“The significant environmental, cultural and economic risks, including threats to water quality, biodiversity, endangered species, Indigenous cultural sites, water-based local industry and the health of local communities, demand urgent action,” coordinator Shae Fleming said.
Fleming said flood zones and drinking water catchments should be “clearly designated as no-go zones” for mining.
A spokesperson for NSW Resources said the state has “robust health and environmental regulations” to ensure community safety.
The NSW natural resources minister, Courtney Houssos, declined to comment on the suitability of the Wild Cattle Creek project, but has previously expressed her vision for the state to become a “leader in critical minerals exploration”.
