"People affected have less than a week to lodge a letter of objection," WFC member David Stevens said.

The advertisement for mine application MIN 5572, was advertised on January 8 in The Age for the exploration of ore body extension for MIN4230, involving costeaning, surveying, drilling and bulk sampling, and underground mining for gold.

Any person wishing to make an objection has 21 days after the application was advertised to lodge a complaint.

"Anyone that is running any tourist interest is encouraged to support a letter of objection," Mr Stevens said.

"If people are concerned about the water and the impact on any stream, and the monitoring of any toxic or polluting events, they should write a letter.

"There are a whole lot of questions that should be answered," he said.

Extra heavy traffic on the road is also a concern in the area. " . . .it will be detrimental to the residents who live in the area," Mr Stevens said.

WFC is convinced the failure of proper landscape care in the area will only lead to disasters unless the government acts and shows respect to primary producers in the area.

"These businesses have made all the correct applications to the council and government for the development of their business, and now out of the blue a massive industrial piece of destruction now wants to be imposed upstream from them,"Mr Stevens said.

"This mine is across some of the highest country and is in the worse possible place."

Another major concern revolves around the vegetation and endangered flora and fauna in the area. Some of the vegetation classes growing there has been recorded as only 10 per cent left in Victoria, according to WFC member Gayle Osborne.

"Powerful owls and brush-tailed phascogales are endangered species which have been recorded near the proposed mine licence," Ms Osborne said.

WFC is concerned that there has not been suitable surveys in the area and that time is running out for this to be done effectively.

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