Queen River King River Confluence

A Tryptich video shot at the confluence of the King and Queen River in Western Tasmania.
The Queen River (The Orange Colour) has been polluted by the waste tailings from decades of copper mining at the Mount Lyall mine in the hills above Queenstown. It is estimated that 100million tons of tailings have been dumped into the river and that the river will take hundreds of years to heal itself.
The Queen has such high acidity that it cannot sustain either plant or invertebrate life. The bed of the river is also clogged with toxic heavy metals. This has also run off into the King River killing most of the life in this beautiful wild river. To add insult to injury the King was also been dammed by the Tasmanian Hydro Electric Commission causing its flow to be sometimes restricted and then scoured out by a massive flow when the AC units switch on the North Coast.
A big thank you to Raymond and Helena at LARQ (Landsacpe Art Research Queenstown) for hosting my stay and introducing me to this sad but powerful place. Thanks also to Wales Arts International for helping fund my stay in Tasmania.

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• Queen
• River
• King
• River