MEDIA RELEASE
31 March 2025
Nature Conservation Council NSW (NCC), the state’s leading environmental advocacy organisation, has called on Centennial Coal to clean up its act as the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) has today approved the transfer of polluted water to a dam that discharges into Sydney’s drinking water supply.
This is a temporary solution to a problem that needs an ecologically responsible and scientifically robust long term fix. The IPC has noted the lack of a closed loop system, with discharged water entering the Sydney drinking water catchment.
“Centennial Coal has deliberately left it to the last moment to alert regulators that it will need an alternative solution to managing wastewater,” said Jacqui Mills, Senior Climate and Energy Campaigner at Nature Conservation Council of NSW.
The Mount Piper power station will be offline for maintenance in April and May, meaning it can’t take Centennial’s wastewater for use in its cooling towers.
“Thanks to community opposition, this is a ‘less bad’ outcome than what was originally proposed: to dump the dirty water into the dam over a 15-year period, yet the situation could still have been avoided,” said Ms Mills.
“We know that Centennial Coal has enough underground water storage capacity. They’ve chosen to pollute instead, and the regulator has let them get away with it.
“Dirty water discharge will far exceed ANZECC water quality standards for salt, which is toxic to species like platypus.
“It’s not good enough and the ecologically sensitive areas around this destructive coal mine need better protection.
“The Springvale Water Treatment Plant was meant to be the solution to Centennial Coal’s dirty water problem. We know now that it is not sufficient to treat the huge volumes of water generated by Centennial Coal’s intensive coal mine methods damaging aquifers in the pristine environment adjacent to the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
“This pollution is just the tip of the iceberg. There are millions of litres of wastewater stored underground in Centennial coal mines, and they are waiting for an opportunity to dump the lot into the river to enable mine expansion.
“This must not be allowed.
“We are calling for an urgent independent public inquiry into Centennial Coal’s operations in the Gardens of Stone area to protect our water, environment and health.”
ENDS
Jacqui Mills, NCC Senior Climate Campaigner, is available for comment.
E: [email protected] M: 0415 640 211
Background
- The company applied to release up to 42ML/day of waste water to Thompsons Creek Reservoir - which discharges to the Coxs River catchment - consisting of up to 24ML/day untreated water (filtered for sediment only but not pollutants or salt). SSD-7592 MOD11 was submitted to cover the period from April to May 2025 when EnergyAustralia’s Mount Piper coal-fired power station is offline for maintenance and unable to take mine waste water for use in its cooling towers.
- This was approved by the Independent Planning Commission on 28 March 2025.
- Following environmental group advocacy and interagency discussion, the amended proposal was significantly narrowed in scope, and involved less environmental harm, than the original proposal from Centennial which was to discharge to the reservoir over successive power station outages for the life of the plant (up to 15 years). Releases of water from the reservoir into the riparian environment are limited to smaller volumes (less than 1ML/day) during the outage periods.
- Centennial Coal also has a stocktake of wastewater stored within its mines that is interrupting coal operations and expansion plans, and it intends to submit a second proposal in the first half of 2025 to discharge much bigger volumes of water directly into Wangcol Creek which runs through the world heritage area.
- Centennial has by-passed technology that was established to effectively clean the wastewater of heavy metals, brine and salt toxic to aquatic life in the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
- These developments follow withdrawal in November 2024 of previous unapproved modification proposals that sought to discharge 10ML/day of dirty water directly into Wangcol Creek to address the water storage problem and prepare for the Angus Place West mine proposed expansion.
- Water experts have previously warned that blending or dilution of dirty water with treated water will exacerbate, rather than address, pollution of the Sydney drinking water catchment. LINK
- The overall intent is to keep EC levels (a measure of salinity) at 600EC, double the Australian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council water quality guideline values for storages and streams (ANZECC 2000).
- High salinity levels are of concern. Higher salinity means lower oxygen, which reduces food for platypus. Elecro-receptors on their bill locate prey, however salinity disrupts these, they can’t find food and starve to death.
- Centennial mining operations occur underneath and adjacent to the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area, a place with 80 rare and threatened species and 16 threatened ecological communities. Intensive mining methods have destroyed aquifers, resulting in drying out of endangered upland Temperate Highland Peat Swamps on Sandstone (THPSS EPBC Act).
- Over a 23-year period, Centennial has been found to have breached its environmental licence more than 1400 times across 7 coal mine sites in the Greater Blue Mountains region. LINK
- Discharge of stored water would clear the way for Centennial to prepare for its extension plans for the proposed Angus Place West coal mine capable of producing 2 million tonnes of coal annually. The Environmental Impact Statement for Angus Place West project is expected in Q2/3 2025.