Celebrity chef Ian Parmenter of Consuming Passions fame is leading residents’ activist group NO COAL!tion Margaret River and has no problem using his contacts from his years on television to advance the campaign.
A separate website, titled Margaret River SOS, has been established to get people to sign an online petition against the project.
Palin recently uploaded a video on You Tube to promote this website and air his concerns.
Elton, who owns land in the Margaret River region and spends around half of each year in Fremantle with his family, spoke at a campaign fundraiser at the Xanadu winery on Saturday.
He described the project as "an act of monumental, millennium-shaping stupidity”, as reported in the Augusta-Margaret River Mail.
Documentary filmmaker and former A Country Practice TV star Michael Muntz is behind an advertising campaign which will be launched against the project.
As the opposition to the project becomes more organised and sophisticated, Vasse coal project operator LD Operations is yet to get through the preliminary phases of greentape in the state.
LDO, a notable contractor which also owns the Chain Valley underground coal mine in New South Wales, submitted its first documents to WA’s Environmental Protection Authority back in November and is still awaiting a determination on the level of assessment that will be applied.
That level of assessment is also required for LDO to complete its scientific studies, modelling and detailed management plans, which will be publicly reviewed.
A determination is expected this week.
“Like everyone else, we’re keen to have the level of assessment set as soon as possible so we can start work on the studies needed to address the concerns of some residents,” LDO managing director Peter Ross previously told ILN.
The proposed mine will target the Osmington seam of the Sue coal measures, and will need approvals to source water, transport the raw coal to a planned wash plant by road and to transport the product thermal coal either domestically or for export.
Up to 225 operational jobs and up to 800 indirect jobs are expected to be created if the project goes ahead.
The draft underground mining plan is looking at a production rate of 1.2 million tonnes per annum for a mine life of 20 years.
The Vasse project is conservatively estimated to have resources of at least 116Mt, according to data provided by Intierra.
