Make Coal Giants Pay for Mine Clean-Up

Our new report – Abandoned Mines in Queensland: Toxic Time-bomb or Employment Opportunity? – calls for big mining companies to cover the cost of rehabilitating the State’s abandoned mines and estimates that this would generate 6000 jobs in regional Queensland!

There are too many large abandoned mines, and the full cost of cleaning them up is too large and should not fall on taxpayers. If mines are levied to pay for the clean up, they can also create jobs in the process.

Why should we miss out on hundreds of schools and hospitals because we’re footing the bill for the mess left behind by irresponsible mining companies?

References:

• Dodging clean up costs Six tricks coal mining companies play (pdf)

• Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry Report (pdf)
• ACF Mine Rehab Stories
• Abandoned Mines in Queensland Report
• NSW Coal Pit Legacy
• Mine Rehab Closure Cost Report
• Rhetoric Vs Reality. Rehab performance snapshot

Bylong Valley and Tarwyn Park

The Bylong Valley is a place of extraordinary scenic beauty and heritage significance. The Bylong Valley Way follows the Goulburn River past dramatic sandstone escarpments to Bylong. Tarwyn Park, the home of Natural Sequence Farming is now owned by a coal mining company and the fight is on to protect it. The coal mine proposed at Bylong would dramatically deplete water resources in the Valley and change this productive agricultural district forever.

Wendy Bowman, the "Hero of Camberwell"

Wendy has been fighting coal mines for nearly 30 years and was a founding member of Hunter Minewatch. Wendy’s first property on Bowman’s Creek was a successful dairy farm until underground mining cracked the creek and removed her water supply.

Wollar

The village of Wollar was declared in March 1885 and was a thriving rural village, until Wilpinjong coal mine started up ten years ago. The heart of Wollar has been eaten away with noise and pollution from Wilpinjong driving people away, and most of the land and the village purchased by American energy company Peabody Energy which owns the mine. The community of Wollar has been decimated.

Bulga

Bulga already cops the dust and noise from three of the Hunter’s huge open coal mines. For six years, residents of the village struggled to save their town from the expansion of Rio Tinto's Warkworth coal mine. They challenged the Government’s approval But Rio Tinto and the NSW Government joined forces against them. They changed laws and regulations. They re-submitted the mine proposal and rolled over all the objections to approve it, taking away the community’s right to appeal the decision in court.

Bishops, wine-makers, livestock producers and conservationists have penned a joint letter to NSW Premier Mike Baird calling on him to protect our common home from a coal mining industry that is out of control.  You can read the full text of the joint letter here

Our common home, our farmland, rivers, villages and bushland are being torn up or ruined for coal mining. How long are coal affected communities expected to wait for the Government to do something to fix up coal mining? 

We've put an ad in Mike Baird's local paper, the Manly Daily, and want all of you to give him a call and add your voice to the push to reform coal mining and save our communities, landscapes and rural industries. Can you call him?