-
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
Add signatureWe call on the NSW and Queensland Premiers to strengthen weak mining laws and force companies to honour their obligations to rehabilitate their mines. The following needs to be done:
- Increase the required deposit to cover rehabilitation costs
- Require all future mines to backfill their mining pits and protect water resources
- Establish an independent authority to monitor and enforce mine rehabilitation
- Penalise companies who breach rehabilitation requirements.
Together we can ensure that the mining industry is held to account and that our land and water resources are protected against abandoned mines.
-
-
Karl Schaerf published Add to this issue, the proposed sell-off of treated effluent from Bathurst to Regis Resources. in Call the Premier about coal reform 2016-02-18 13:37:11 +1100
Add to this issue, the proposed sell-off of treated effluent from Bathurst to Regis Resources.
The conversation went well and I was assured my name will be added to what already appears to be quite a lengthy list of concerned citizens/electors, in addition to my grave concerns about the proposed sell-off of water to Regis Resource and all this happens to be within the electorate of the current Minister for Local Government, who also happens to be a former Mayor of Bathurst. The bloke to whom I spoke agreed it was a good point and, rather surprisingly, didn't seem aware Toole is a former Mayor of Bathurst
