Balla Balla River is a
river in the
Pilbara region of
Western Australia.
The river rises on the southern side of Yirrakulanna Hills and flows in a north-easterly direction crossing the
North West Coastal Highway near the Stranger mine at
Whim Creek then finally discharging into Balla Balla harbour, near
Depuch Island
Depuch Island (or Warmalana) is a volcanic island located off the north-west coast of Western Australia's Pilbara region, near Port Hedland.
Aboriginal significance
The island is of cultural importance to the Ngaluma Aboriginal people, who kno ...
in the
Indian Ocean.
The river is ephemeral and can be completely dry in the summer months, but during periodic flood events the water level can rise over . The
riparian vegetation is dominated by
river red gums.
The river has three
tributaries, Whim Creek, Louden Creek and Caporn Creek.
The river name was recorded in 1878 by
John Forrest
Sir John Forrest (22 August 1847 – 2 SeptemberSome sources give the date as 3 September 1918 1918) was an Australian explorer and politician. He was the first premier of Western Australia (1890–1901) and a long-serving cabinet minister i ...
, who was
surveying
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...
the area at the time. The name is believed to be
Aboriginal
Aborigine, aborigine or aboriginal may refer to:
*Aborigines (mythology), in Roman mythology
* Indigenous peoples, general term for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area
*One of several groups of indigenous peoples, see ...
in origin and is thought to come from the Kanyarra word ''Parla'', which means mud.
The
traditional owners of the area are the
Ngarluma
The Ngarluma are an Indigenous Australian people of the western Pilbara area of northwest Australia. They are coastal dwellers of the area around Roebourne and Karratha. Not including Millstream.
Language
The Ngarluma language belongs to the ...
people, who inhabited the region around the Balla Balla, the
Maitland and the
Sherlock Rivers.
The area to the west of the river contains potentially economic deposits of
magnetite.
The town of
Balla Balla
Mbalabala (Balla Balla until 1982) is a village on the main Beitbridge- Bulawayo road (at the junction with the Filabusi Road) in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Situated approximately 41 miles (66 km) south-east of the city of Bulawayo. The name ...
, gazetted in 1898, was once located near the river mouth. It acted as a
port for the Whim Creek copper mine.
In 2019, the owners of the
Whim Creek Copper Mine were handed an Environmental Protection Notice by the
Department of Water and Environmental Regulation because of seepage of heavy metals from the mine into the Balla Balla River, considered a serious pollution risk. While in
care and maintenance and with no active mining, Black Rock Minerals re-processed existing stockpiles through a small process plant and heap leach. Copper levels of 3.5 milligrams per litre were recorded in the local drinking water, well above the permitted level of 0.002 milligrams per litre. The small scale re-processing at Whim Creek eventually ceased in October 2019.
References
Rivers of the Pilbara region
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