The condition was stipulated by the New South Wales Department of Planning as part of its approval to allow Xstrata to continue mining at Baal Bone in Lithgow until 2014 under new arrangements that require historic coal mines, operating without a planning consent, to seek approval to continue operations.
The department’s deputy director-general Richard Pearson said this ensured these mines had contemporary environmental controls and conditions.
Baal Bone has been operating as an underground coal mine since the early 1980s but does not have a planning consent for the area where it is currently mining.
Legislative provisions which allow mining within the area of a mining lease without holding a current development consent or major project approval (such as has been the case at Baal Bone) are due to expire on December 31, 2011.
Thereafter, unless transitional provisions under clause 8K of the Environmental Planning & Assessment Regulation 2000 are further extended, all underground mining operations in NSW will require approval under Part 3A of the EP&A Act if they do not already hold a valid development consent.
Accordingly, Baal Bone lodged a project application in August 2009, seeking major project approval for: continuation of underground mining using longwall mining methods, to extract up to 2.8 million tonnes per annum run-of-mine coal; mining of identified “remnant” coal associated with areas of existing underground workings; continued operation of existing surface infrastructure to produce up to 2Mtpa of product coal; continued transport of coal to market by rail and road; and site rehabilitation.
Baal Bone is currently mining longwall 30 and has 190 employees. All proposed mining is expected to be completed by 2014.
The application covers both the area of the existing consent and the area subject to subsidence management plan approval. If approved, Baal Bone will surrender its existing development consents, but seeks to maintain the existing project approval for a ventilation shaft.
The new approval, issued by the Department of Planning, also requires the mine to take all reasonable and feasible measures to reduce noise from surface infrastructure by 2 decibels by the end of 2011.
The department’s assessment found that the impact on surface water and groundwater would be minor and could be appropriately managed, as would the impact on Coxs River Swamp.
Nevertheless, the conditions of approval require these impacts to be closely monitored to ensure they remain acceptable, Pearson said.
The decision illustrated the benefits of the department’s assessment work, which provided an avenue to assess these historic coal mining operations.
“We’ve required some 12 coal mines across New South Wales which historically operated without planning consent to lodge their plans with us,” he said.
“This ensures that a rigorous investigation of all relevant environmental and amenity issues takes place before approval is granted.
“Baal Bone is the second mine in this situation to be approved and now has a unified, contemporary approval under Part 3A of the EP&A Act for all continuing operations.”
Chris Jonkers from the Lithgow Environment Group told ABC Radio that it was “grossly irresponsible” for the NSW government to have overlooked the environmental impact of the mine, which included endangering local water supplies and native species, and cracks in the earth caused by mining operations.
"We found 151 plant species in that area that were not identified on the company's species list and they've been totally ignored and some of these species will disappear,” he said.
"The water pollution's going to continue, the cliffs are going to continue to fall, cracks are going to open up and there's no requirement for this company to repair any of that damage."
