Despite the sale of the CopperCo Ltd owned mine to Cape Lambert Iron Ore Ltd on May 6, the sale agreement only takes affect at the end of June and includes any existing remediation clean up costs.

Slater & Gordon lawyer Damian Scattini told The North West Star last week that he had only taken on the case to represent three graziers downstream of the mine one week ago.

“The latest is that the (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu) insurance company is dragging its heels,” Mr Scattini said.

“Their cheque book remains unopened.”

Mr Scattini, who is based in Brisbane, said that he met with the three graziers recently after they were referred to him by another law firm.

He said that the firm had made some enquires but nothing had happened as yet.

Mr Scattini said it was not so much a compensation dollar amount the graziers were chasing from the mine owners but to cover all the fencing, agistment and decontamination clean up costs on their land.

He said one property covered 270,000 acres and the compensation would have to cover the cost of kilometres of fencing and the agistment of thousands of cattle.

Mr Scattini said the contaminated land was unusable at the moment and that was the graziers’ biggest concern.

He said they were forced to overstock certain areas of their properties as that was the best available area.

“They just want things made right. It’s putting these good people in a bad situation.”

Numerous graziers in the North West were affected by a number of mine’s tailings dam spillages during the extensive wet season floods.