Longwall Mines Defended

Newcastle Herald

Tuesday January 30, 2007

By JACQUI JONES

MINING groups have rejected a new report that claims longwall mining is damaging rivers and creeks around Hunter and other NSW coalfields and calls for new environmental protection legislation.

Impacts of Longwall Coal Mining on the Environment in NSW was released late last week by the Sydney-based independent, non-profit lobby and research group Total Environment Centre.

The report said longwall mining was causing surface subsidence and damaging rivers and creeks in Hunter and other NSW coalfields and remediation work to repair the damage was largely ineffectual.

It called for legislation for a one-kilometre mining exclusion zone around rivers and groundwater aquifers in areas with existing mining licences, and a one-kilometre protection zone around rivers and streams where longwall mining is proposed.

The report said an independent regulator with the power to prevent longwall mining in sensitive sites was needed.

A Department of Primary Industries (Mineral Resources) spokeswoman said yesterday the Government did not support a one-size-fits-all buffer zone that was not underpinned by appropriate scientific evidence.

An arbitrary buffer zone could result in the unnecessary sterilisation of substantial coal reserves with few if any environmental benefits.

NSW Minerals Council chief executive Nikki Williams said the mining industry was committed to addressing community concern about the effect of longwall mining on the environment.

Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union mining and energy division president Ian Murray said any environmental damage had more to do with drought and climate change than longwall mining.

"People are just jumping on everything and anything, especially environmentalists, to put a scare into the minds of people that coalmining in any shape and form is causing it," he said.