Lock the Gate Alliance, Nature Conservation Council of NSW, and Illawarra Residents for Responsible Mining rallied outside Wollongong Coal’s AGM in Towradgi last Friday calling for an end to coal mining in water catchment areas by the company.

Wollongong Coal is currently seeking to expand its Russell Vale and Wongawilli underground coal mines deeper in water catchment areas, but the company has a record of financial instability, technical incapacity, and frequent breaches of the conditions of its mining licence, according to the activists.

A letter to NSW Minister for Resources and Energy Anthony Roberts from EDO NSW on behalf of the Lock the Gate Alliance states: “The evidence suggests that Wollongong Coal is a loss-making company. It is our client’s view that it is in clear and most probably terminal financial distress, as witnessed by the $657 million shortfall in net current assets as of 31 March 2015, and the $371 million of net losses reported in the last two years.

“The auditors of the group, Ernst & Young, note clearly that the firm’s financial position raises significant uncertainty about the assumption of a going concern even over the next twelve months.

“We are instructed that it has a revolving door of senior management and has closed its traditional coal mining business.”

In trying to develop a “capital intensive, complex and potentially dangerous underground coal-mining project” at Russell Vale, there is added community and environmental risk in terms of the Special Area of Sydney’s water catchment, the letter states.

“In March 2015, Water NSW explained that the Russell Vale expansion ‘is located under a declared catchment area and under land managed as Schedule 1 Special Area (noting that the primary purpose of these areas is to protect the quality and quantity of water in our catchments and that a primary objective is to maintain their ecological integrity)’,” according to the letter.