Stop Coal Pollution Loopholes
Sydney’s drinking water supplies over five million people. Right now, it is under attack from coal mine companies.
Centennial Coal has, yet again, submitted plans to dump tens of millions of litres of water laced with heavy metals and salinity into the Coxs River every day.
Why? Because it wants to expand its underground mines and the dirty water is in the way. It might be a cheap and easy option for the coal company, but it’s at the expense of our public health and the health of our environment.
Centennial’s mines operate next to the sensitive Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and under the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area. If approved, the expansions it’s seeking would turbo charge destruction of this ecologically sensitive area, home to endangered upland swamps.
In the Illawarra, Peabody wants to mine further under the Woronora catchment. Coal mining has already decimated threatened flora and fauna and permanently disrupted ground and surface water flows.
Sign the petition calling for NSW Labor to honour its promise and protect Sydney’s drinking water.
Dear Premier Chris Minns,
We call on the NSW Government to immediately amend the State Environmental Planning Policy (Sydney Drinking Water Catchment) 2011 to reinstate the full integrity of the Neutral or Beneficial Effect (NorBE) test and honour the party’s commitment to protect the Sydney Water Catchment.
Specifically, we demand that your government implements the following changes:
- Uphold the original commitment: Deliver on the repeated Labor commitment to ‘reinstate the proper protections for the Sydney Drinking Water Catchment’ by returning the NorBE test to its original purpose of ensuring that all development enhances, or at least does not degrade, our vital water supply.
- Reinstate a clean baseline: Amend the NorBE test to ensure it is applied against a clean, unpolluted water quality standard for the entire catchment, instead of allowing a degraded ‘baseline’ that already reflects existing contamination.
- Close the mining exemption loophole: Explicitly revoke any legislative clauses that allow modifications or extensions to existing developments, particularly in mining, to proceed without the full and stringent application of the NorBE test.
- Mandate pollution treatment: Enforce a new requirement that all current projects proven to discharge pollutants (like heavy metals and arsenic) into the water catchment are immediately compelled to implement best-practice water treatment technology to achieve a genuinely ‘beneficial effect’ on water quality.
Protect our water. Honour your promise.