Despite the site’s natural and heritage values, Centennial Coal is again proposing a destructive coal mine in the area.
There are three aspects to this proposal that are particularly concerning.
1 – Dumping of toxic water into Sydney’s drinking water
To restart mining at Angus Place, Centennial Coal wants to remove 10 million litres per day of contaminated mine wastewater from the flooded mine and discharge it untreated into a stream that feeds into Sydney’s main drinking water source.
This mine waste is full of heavy metals and toxic chemicals like arsenic, selenium, ammonia, and fluoride.
The company itself claims that the water is too polluted to be treated by a specially built reverse osmosis treatment plant located nearby.
2 - The direct environmental impact of mining on the Gardens of Stone reserve
The conservation status and ecological sensitivity of the site does not afford it protection from underground mining.
When underground mining last occurred, the company cracked the bedrock under several high-value wetlands, likely leading them to permanently lose all their water and then contributing to them catching on fire. See here: Wetlands should not burn. Centennial Coal paid $1.45 million to the Federal government due to its significant impacts on federally-listed endangered wetlands.
In addition to restarting mining at Angus Place, Centennial Coal wants to expand operations to Angus Place West.
There are a number of threatened species directly at risk from this expansion: Black Gum, Gang-gang Cockatoo, Greater Glider, Large-eared Piet Bat, Latham's Snipe, Rainbow Bee-Eater.
Allowing this mine expansion to go ahead would mean allowing the company that destroyed unique rock pagoda formations and critical peat swamps in one part of the park to do the exact same thing in another part of the park.
Instead, the Gardens of Stone should be given full national park protection.
The area was only ever excluded due to lobbying by the coal industry, despite being included in the original 1934 Myles Dunphy Blue Mountains National Park proposal.
3 – The Angus Place West proposal will delay NSW’s exit from coal by almost a decade
The coal from the proposed Angus Place West mine is going to be used to keep Mt Piper coal Power Station open until 2040 – almost a decade after every other coal plant is scheduled to close in NSW. Without this coal, Mt Piper would become economically unviable and would be retired much earlier.
That means that this mine proposal seeks to delay or extend NSW’s exit from coal by up to a decade.
Mt Piper Power Station (Credit: Hunter Community Environment Centre)
Where is the proposal up to?
Centennial’s proposal to recommence and expand mining at Angus Place Colliery is before the NSW planning department. It is unknown when the environmental impact statement for the bigger Angus Place West proposal will be made available for public comment, but we expect it could be in late 2024.
To restart mining at Angus Place, and as a prerequisite for expansion to Angus Place West, Centennial must first remove water from the flooded Angus Place mine. It has submitted two modification approvals to increase the transfer of contaminated mine water from 2.5ML/day to 10 ML/day from Angus Place to a Centennial operated site called Western Coal Services, before discharging it untreated into Wangcol Creek.
It has also applied to transfer ‘residuals’ (sludge) from the mine to bypass the existing $200 million water treatment plant, something that was previously approved as an emergency measure to address contaminated water.
Currently, these modification applications are on hold while Centennial Coal undertakes a review of water management options across its sites. It is unknown when public meetings by the Independent Planning Commission will be held to determine them.
Further Background to the Gardens of Stone
The partial protection of the Gardens of Stone region is one of the most impressive community victories in recent decades.
For years, Centennial Coal denied they were damaging the wetlands and waterways, and paid consultants to convince state and federal governments that they wouldn’t drain these nationally endangered ecosystems.
However, decades of behind the scenes work and mounting scientific evidence forced Centennial Coal to admit that the Angus Place Coal Mine expansion would completely drain five endangered wetlands, destroying the habitat of some of some of NSW’s rarest threatened plant and animals. Shortly thereafter, they withdrew their application to mine coal in the area. This paved the way for the creation of the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area in May 2022.
Centennial’s current “Angus Place West” proposal is an alternative to the original project in a slightly different location. Centennial are again claiming there is no risk of draining the remaining endangered wetlands.