The Eneabba heavy mineral sands deposit comprises fossil strandlines at Eneabba East, Eneabba South, Eneabba West and Depot Hill. The deposit Is 40 km long and up to 9 km wide. It was developed using strip mining, hydraulic mining and dredging.
Eneabba was the largest heavy mineral sand mine in Western Australia.
Rockwater supervised the drilling of sixty hydrostratigraphic holes, 57 of which were completed as production bores. The production and associated monitoring bores were constructed to 20-700 m depth in the Superficial, Yarragadee and Cattamarra aquifers of the northern Perth Basin.
The borefield supplied up to 21 GL/annum for ore-processing. This is equivalent to one-third of the current groundwater water supply to Perth, and makes Eneabba the largest mine water supply project to have been conducted by Rockwater.
Rockwater is currently involved with the plugging and abandonment of decommissioned bores at Eneabba. During borefield operation, we also conducted extensive studies into bore corrosion, clogging of the reticulation system with iron-reducing bacteria and developing methods by which these could be controlled.
Rockwater has been proving hydrogeological services to the Eneabba Sands Mine since 1975, during which have completed over 20 projects.
