Both Buswell and Carles talked to members of the residents' activist group NO COAL!tion in Margaret River yesterday, which is led by celebrity chef of “Consuming Passions” fame Ian Parmenter.
Carles plans to raise a grievance motion against the coal mine proposal in state parliament on Thursday, according to The West Australian.
Buswell, the member for Vasse, told the newspaper he had not met a politician who thought the coal mine was a good idea.
Parmenter told ILN on Friday the activist group had done all it could politically to get the message out to WA Premier Colin Barnett.
Aside from environmental and subsidence fears, residents are also concerned about congestion on the roads and the impact on Margaret River’s hospitality and tourism industry.
Parmenter previously said the entire coal seam runs “from Busselton down to Augusta as I understand it”
On the proposed site of the project, Parmenter said it was less than 2 kilometres from the river.
“We have seen what has happened in some of the other sites over in New South Wales and we’re just very nervous it will affect the water table and the Yarragadee and Leederville aquifers.
“And we think this one site is the tip of the iceberg, because there are seven leases over 6000 hectares.”
Singleton-based contract mining company LD Operations is working on the documentation to submit to the WA state government under the mine approval process.
Bunbury-based Strategen Environmental Consultants is commissioned to assist the environmental assessment process for the project.
LDO expects about 225 operational jobs to be created from the underground coal mine.
The draft underground mining plan is looking at a target production rate of 1.2 million tonnes per annum for a mine life of 20 years.
The Vasse project conservatively has resources of at least 116Mt, according to data provided by Intierra.
Private resource company AMCI owns about 70% of the project while other private company Core Resources owns about 30%.
Both Buswell remains on the Liberal Party but resigned from the ministry after Carles came clean on their affair in April.
Carles is an independent after resigning from the Greens.
