Enviro group turns to NSW court to block Springvale approval

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Environmentalist group 4nature has launched legal proceedings in the New South Wales Land and Environment Court, challenging the state government’s approval of Centennial Coal’s Springvale underground coal mine.

In September last year, the New South Wales Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) approved an extension of the current Springvale coal mine, allowing the mine to produce at its current level of 4.5-million tonnes a year for another 13 years.

The project’s development consent had initially been set to expire at the end of September last year.

4nature president Andrew Cox said on Monday that the litigation was launched to uphold the law and protect the water quality of the major Blue Mountains river and Sydney’s drinking water.

“The extension to the Springvale coal mine was approved in September, but we contend that the law applying to developments in Sydney’s drinking water catchments, introduced to protect the quality of Sydney’s drinking water, was not correctly applied.”

‘The law requires that the New South Wales government’s PAC had to be satisfied that the mine would have a “neutral or beneficial impact” on water quality. We say that the PAC was not satisfied, nor could it have been,” said Cox.

He pointed out that the mine was set to discharge up to 19-million litres of water laden with nutrients, salt, metals and other contaminants into the Coxs river each day, before it flowed into Warragamba dam, Sydney’s main drinking water supply.

The court was expected to hear the case on February 12, and operations at Springvale would remain unaffected.

“Over the past five years, Springvale mine has been through a rigorous and exhaustive assessment process to secure an approval to allow Springvale to continue to operate,” said Centennial spokesperson Katie Brassil.

She added that the company was confident that all issues raised during the assessment process had been addressed, adding that it was confident of retaining its approval.