In Kalgoorlie water is more precious than champaign.  It was the site of one of the biggest gold strikes in Australia, but to develop its full potential it needed water.  The answer was The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme or “Golden pipeline” completed in 1903.  The line runs 566 km (352 miles) from a weir outside Perth.   The guides told us the pipes were originally wooden made by coopers (barrel makers) but a little research tells me while it makes a good story it wasn’t true.  The line was steel, 60,000 interlocking pipes.  (Guides are more often entertainers than historians, a relevant story pays more, I know from experience.  If you care, check.)

It’s hard to maintain such a project.  The pipes corroded so they were lined with concrete.  The pipeline was buried but it was hard to find leak so it was moved above ground where it was damaged by wildfires.  Now it is below ground in critical areas but above ground most of the way.  We saw it running along the railway right of way.  Starting this year the pipeline is being renewed. The reservoir is being enlarged and new pipe laid, although they are keeping some of the old pipe to preserve its “heritage site” designation.

It takes between five and eleven days for the water to course through eight pumping stations and more than three hundred miles of pipe to get from Perth to Kalgoorlie.  It takes only 4 to 5 hours to drive; the train takes twelve.  Some of that, I think, is intentional slowdown.  I woke up in the middle of the night and we were sidelined for quite a spell.  I heard another train pass but after we did not move.  I was looking up at the stars and occasionally a cloud of dust drifted up as a truck went by on an unpaved highway.  Just before our 5:30 AM door knock the train started rolling.  I think they didn’t want us to reach Kalgoorlie until morning.

At 6 AM the train stops in Kalgoorlie for 3 hours so we can have an “off train experience.”  We could choose from three.  All of them take you to the large open pit mine but one has more emphasis on mining, one on Aboriginal life and one on the culture of this outback town.  We picked option three.

We drove through Kalgoorlie looking at the turn of the twentieth century buildings and stopped at the huge open pit mine.  Hibbing Minnesota used to claim to be the largest open pit mine but does not even make the top ten.  Kalgoorlie’s Fimiston Super Pit is only number 6 at 600 meters deep, but they are still digging and plan to go to eight hundred meters (2500 feet) which would move it up to number 3.  Number one is in Utah, the Bingham Canyon Mine, 1.2 kilometers deep, owned by Australian Rio Tinto.  Super Pit is not planned to come close.

We stopped at Super pit to watch the operation.  They are expanding the mine’s perimeter so they can go deeper without caving in.  So far, the mine has produced over sixty million ounces of gold.  When the excavation is done, according to the guide, they will have eleven more years of processing.  Processing takes much more water than the golden pipeline can provide.  Eighty percent of the water used in processing is saline from pumped from the water table.  Some of the water is five times the salinity of ocean water, 4% is wastewater effluent and 6% is potable water from the pipeline.

After the mine visit we went to Bolder.  Bolder is part of the Kalgoorlie municipality but has a separate identity and, honoring the Bederites we met, will feature in its own post.