Extract from ABC News
Updated
Farmers on the Liverpool Plains in northern New South
Wales are vowing to launch legal action and resort to civil
disobedience if they have to, to stop a Chinese coal mining company
being granted a mining licence.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt approved the Shenhua Watermark project at Breeza last week under strict conditions, but the New South Wales Government is yet to receive a mining licence application from the company.The open cut mine is forecast to produce up to 10 million tonnes of coal per year over 30 years, but farmers claim the project will leave a 35 square kilometre hole in some of the most fertile agricultural land in the country.
Farmer and Caroona Coal Action Group head Tim Duddy said the project was "agricultural genocide".
"We are not talking about a coexistence model, we are talking about mining coming and farming going and it's as simple as that," he said.
Mr Duddy and a group of other Liverpool Plains farmers have met to discuss how they will proceed.
"We're looking at our legal options, we're looking at our other options, certainly the community is prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure a mine does not occur here," Mr Duddy said.
Farmer Andrew Pursehouse, who owns more than 4,000 hectares of prime agricultural land on the Liverpool Plains, said the group would resort to civil disobedience if it had to.
Shenhua's plans for Liverpool Plains
Shenhua Watermark is planning to construct an open-cut mine to extract 10 million tonnes of coal a year from an area known for its fertile black agricultural soils.
"We've got to act like French farmers and stop this, this is just not right."
Mr Pursehouse's son Hugh, who also works on the family farm, said he was "disappointed" that the Federal Government approved the mine.
"They're pretty much flushing all our futures down the drain, they're destroying it for us," Hugh Pursehouse said.
He said he hopes all Australians will get behind the farmers' cause and show their support online.
"At the moment we've got a Liverpool Plains Youth group all over social media just trying to get the word out to all of Australia and everywhere."
Some welcome mine as economic booster
But not everyone in this pocket of northern New South Wales is against the mine.Gunnedah Mayor Owen Hasler said he expects many benefits for the local economy.
"It also means we would potentially get a lot of people coming here to work and to live preferably.
"Then there's obviously the flow-on effects — they bring their partners and families, schools benefit from increased numbers, businesses have extra spend in our community and we see further housing development."
Shenhua Watermark Coal set up headquarters in the area five years ago and has invested $5 million in community projects.
Some of these include upgrades to hospital wards, facilities for local schools and new ramps for the skate parks.
Cr Hasler denied the company had tried to buy the community's approval.
"It's not a question of buying it I think it's a question of earning it and I think they have attempted to be good corporate citizens," Mr Hasler said.
Jamie Chaffey, who runs a local company that services both the mining and agriculture industries with equipment, freight, transport and engineering services, also welcomes the mine.
"I personally think agriculture and mining have coexisted for a long time in the Gunnedah area and I think with the controls that are in place that will only continue."
Mr Chaffey is hoping to win business from Shenhua and will go through the tender process.
"There are no guarantees that we'll be involved in the construction or life of mine operations of this mine," he said.
"But I think being competent and capable and priced in the right bracket that we'll see ourselves with every opportunity to serve Shenhua."
'One of the greatest bits of land we have in Australia'
Andrew Pursehouse described the decision to prioritise 30 years of coal production over a lifetime of agriculture as short-sighted.
"We have very productive soils, you have very good natural fertility and a good depth of soil, and a wonderful climate that rains in the winter and the summer as well.
"[The soil] has got a very high clay content and it's self mulching which means when it's dry it cracks and opens up and when it's wet it swells so in that process it takes a lot of organic matter down into the cracks."
Key facts: Shenhua's coal mine
- The open-cut coal project is valued at $1.2 billion
- 10 million tonnes of coal will be extracted a year
- The mine has a 30-year life, with extraction expected to end in 2046
- 159 million tonnes of coal will be mined over 30 years
- The project is 280km by rail from the Port of Newcastle, from where the coal will be exported
- Mining operations will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- There will be five blast events a week once mining operations are established
- The project is expected to employ 600 construction staff and another 400 to run the mine
"It's not just that coal is in one area that's confined and the soil is in another," Mr Duddy said.
"The whole thing is like a big club sandwich — where you have the soil on top, you have the inter-layers of coal and water and clays and all sorts of other things in that geology.
"If you take any one aspect of that out and you interfere with that balance, where you allow the good water to drain into the bad water then agriculture here is finished."
A spokesperson for Shenhua Watermark said the project "had been the subject of more than five years of unprecedented scientific scrutiny".
"The project has demonstrated time and time again there will be no adverse impacts on the region's groundwater and impacts on sensitive ecological areas have been appropriately managed and offset," the spokesperson said.
"There is no reason why the project should not proceed."
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