A company has applied to search for copper and gold in the Yass Valley near the ACT border.
If approved, a 200 square kilometre area near Spring Range and Sutton would be subject to tests.
Councillor David Needham said he didn’t think it was something the community should be concerned about.
“I think it’s an absolute storm in a tea cup,” Cr Needham said.
He said if the company did find something it would take a long time for it to be able to start extracting the minerals.
The councillor said people shouldn’t be worried about geologists going onto properties unannounced. The company, CGNM Resources, would need permission to access land for tests.
CGNM Resources confirmed on Monday it hadn’t heard whether the application had been approved yet.
“The first step is exploration and if we find something interesting, maybe we do the drilling,” CGNM Resources spokeswoman Shao Qing said.
Having an exploration licence didn’t guarantee a mining lease would be granted. According to the NSW government only a small percentage of land subject to exploration licences become a mine.
The Sutton and District Community Association (SDCA) said it hadn’t taken a definitive stance on the project yet.
At the group’s most recent meeting it determined the community would try to put forward a combined front when it had all the information.
The meeting heard, from geologist and Sutton resident Brian Senior, that the area had already been explored so much in the past it was unlikely viable deposits would be found.
However, the area has been subject to mining in the past.
“Sutton only exists because of gold,” SDCA president Paul Kable said. “Sutton was a village built to look after the miners.”