Wollongong Coal chief operating officer Dave Stone said he welcomed the department of planning and environment’s recommendation as a further positive step to providing for the long term and sustainable viability of Wollongong Coal.

“The Wollongong Coal UEP is the result of lengthy, rigorous and detailed planning to develop a sustainable and balanced mine design and associated operating processes,” Stone said.

“As part of this process we have made substantial design changes in response to feedback from the community and regulators to minimise impacts.

“We engaged industry leading experts to develop best practice plans and associated management practices in the fields of ecology, subsidence, noise and water.

“With these plans in place the community can be confident that Wollongong Coal is equipped to exceed expectations in these key areas.”

Last month the PAC approved Wollongong Coal’s urgent Russell Vale mine job-saving modification to mine the first 400m of a planned longwall expansion panel but has warned that the “employment justification is wearing thin”

In terms of the decision, with the matter referred to PAC in September, the commission agreed with the New South Wales planning department views that the small change would not significantly impact groundwater resources.

But the background to the planning request did bother the PAC.

In June Wollongong warned it would put the Russell Vale mine on care and maintenance at the cost of at least 200 jobs if it did not receive timely government approvals.

PAC said it was put in a difficult position.

“On the one hand, it shares objectors’ concerns in regard to the piecemeal approach to gaining planning approval and agrees that ideally this application should not be considered in isolation in the absence of the expansion plan,” PAC said in its approval last month.

“On the other hand, this application is said to be essential to maintain the operation of the mine and the employment of existing mine workers until the expansion plan is determined.

“The commission notes that this is the third time that the maintenance of employment of existing mine workers is used as a justification to seek incremental approval for a small area in the absence of a comprehensive expansion plan.

“The credibility of the employment justification is wearing thin.

“The commission is of the view that if another incremental modification comes in before the finalisation of the expansion plan, the consent authority will have to carefully consider the weight that it would give to this application when balancing the potential cumulative impacts of underground mining in a sensitive environment in the absence of a full picture of past, present and predicted impacts.”

Protect Sydney’s Water Alliance’s Isabel McIntosh said she was disappointed.

“The subsidence from this longwall very likely will cause significant damage,” she told the ABC.

“This new longwall is a high-risk experiment and it certainly should not be taking place in a water catchment that supplies more than four-and-a-half million people.”

The approval to mine the first 400m of the panel, Longwall 6, equates to 260,000 tonnes run of mine with Wollongong previously saying it would take one to two months to extract.