coal

Friday 13th: a black and white day

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Last Friday I collected a special parcel at the post office: my copies of the new book!

After two years, it’s reality, quite a hefty reality at 453 pages, but that includes the many references. It’s half as many words again as my first book, and in a larger format.

The cover looks great, and despite the size, the pages flip easily. So a great production job by Macmillan, following on from Exisle.

Both teams are working hard to promote it, as they are right behind the need for Australians to know of the urgency and gravity of this issue.

I think maybe at last I do feel proud of it, as people keep telling me I should; until now I’ve just been relieved to have survived to finish it! Cathy Smith took the photo.

I understand from Exisle that copies are already being sent to those who pre-ordered online.

I possibly need to explain that I don’t have (or own) the books myself so I can’t sign them, but bring them along to any talk I give near you and I’ll write in them for you. 

So that was the white side of the day.

At 11 am I had to be at a rally outside Singleton Civic Centre, where a public forum was to be held on the Coalition’s  Strategic Regional Land Use Plan. About 300 people were there, bearing signs expressing their concerns and their wishes, like ‘AGL go to hell!’  Merriwa, Putty, Bunnan, Bylong, Bulga, Jerrys Plains, Gloucester… all fighting for their futures.

Nobody was happy about the quite insultingly glib ‘plan’ which broke just about every promise made before the election.

That became anger and frustration in the actual forum as Planning Minister Hazzard in particular seemed to dismiss so many concerns in a manner that to me seemed quite patronising.

Apparently he can’t exclude or ‘ringfence’ areas from mining or drilling because they could be changed at a whim later; why not do it anyway, as Murray Armstrong asked, while they get their plan finalised. And why, I ask, can’t they legislate so they’re not subject to whims?

It would appear that obvious defects in the mapping were news to him: like no mention of a viticulture industry cluster for Upper Hunter wineries; almost nothing worth protecting, so needing to go through the ‘Gateway’ process, in the Gloucester Valley, nor on the cropping and grazing lands of Merriwa.  It seemed like deliberate sacrifices of some areas had been made to coal and gas.

Farmers and residents stressed that Cabinet needed to realise this that was a matter of survival, to be aware of the ‘mental anguish’ of people forced into this daily battle against coal and CSG, and the critical importance of surface and groundwater to farmers. If they don’t, who knows where will it lead? 

The feeling was that Planning was looking after the mining companies; there was no confidence in ‘answers’ given to the limited number of questions able to be fitted in. Surely more than two hours could have been allowed?

But would they listen anyway?

Everyone needs to have their say officially by making a submission by May 3rd. 

If possible, join the rally on May 1 in Sydney: see the NSW Farmers website or call 02 8251 1700.
 
Submissions can be lodged online, by email or by post to
Director, Strategic Regional Policy,
Department of Planning and Infrastructure,
GPO Box 39
SYDNEY NSW 2001

Visit the Rich Land, Wasteland Facebook page

Bimblebox and beyond

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Many of you will recall my several posts on Bimblebox, the Nature Refuge in Queensland’s Galilee Basin that Clive Palmer wants to dig up for his China First mine. (See Outback Eden under threat and Speak up for nature)

Now there’s a film about its plight — but not only about this one precious place.

The documentary Bimblebox, by U.S. film-maker Mike O’Connell, spans the coal and CSG frenzy in Australia generally. The poster image was provided by associate producer Eleanor Smith.

It’s hoped to be Australia’s Gasland, to wake up the city and the country and add to the growing popular rejection of this mindless resources rush, set to ruin Australia, as it is ruining the lives of so many Australians.

DVDs are currently being prepared, and the film is available for screenings.

Find out more at the documentary’s website, via Facebook or Twitter.

I saw it at the premiere in Byron Bay in March, were I was delighted to meet Paola Cassoni, (left) one of the caretakers of Bimblebox, and driving force behind this film, and to re-meet Lindsay and Avriel Tyson, with whom I’d stayed at their Springwood property, under serious threat from the neighbouring Xstrata’s Rolleston mine. See my posts When the neighbours get pushy, Coal floods? and Blackening the Golden Triangle.

Avriel’s segment in this film is extremely moving.

All three feature in my new book, Rich Land, Wasteland — how coal is killing Australia.

Visit the Rich Land, Wasteland Facebook page.

Mudgee: the wHole mining story

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Last week a swag of mining bigwigs paid a few thousand dollars each to gather at the Parklands Resort just outside Mudgee and no doubt discuss the many opportunities for them in the region.

Unfortunately, with the three coal mines already operating just 50kms north of their town – Ulan, Moolarben and Wilpinjong– and their planned expansions, plus the proposals for Cobbora, Bylong and Running Stream, a lot of locals take a rather different view on their prospects under coal — or silver, as at Lue, or CSG or whatever else can make a few billion for big business.

So the concerned community groups got together for the first time and held their own ‘people’s conference’ for free. Mid-Western Community Action Network, in conjunction with Bylong Valley Protection Alliance, NSW Nature Conservation Council, Lue Action Group, Merriwa Health Environment Group, Rylstone District Environment Society, Running Stream Water Users Association, and Mudgee District Environment Group, organised a great two-day event.

David Clarke from NSW Farmers is pictured above, speaking from the posh truck stage, watched by M.C. Nell Schofield from Running Stream. (Photo from the Mudgee Mining the wHole story website)

Buses lent and driven by Susan Symons and Grayson Tuck-Lee, themselves severely impacted by the Moolarben mine, took about 100 people to a rally opposite the Resort.

Speakers summed up the issues from the back of a truck; passing traffic stared, some tooted support; only one driver yelled abuse.

Then we walked back to town, carrying a plethora of signs, and chanting ‘No more mines near Mudgee!’

It was a scattered trail, as some walkers were aged and some frail, a few walking with the aid of a stick — and with difficulty.

Several pushed toddlers in strollers — the generation who will bear the brunt of what is happening here long after the bigwigs have nicked off with the loot.

Some folk were from the almost extinct villages of Ulan and Wollar — cleared out by coal. Others had come from beyond the shire to lend support; those of us from the coal-trashed Hunter could only hope Mudgee does not go the same way.

Afternoon sessions at Lawson Park were illuminating, as a wide range of visiting and local speakers offered information and experiences and discussed various impacts, many already evident, from health to housing, business, wineries, tourism and farming. The day ended with a full-house dinner talk by me, called ‘Clearing out the country’, the title of the chapter about this area in my new book.

It was appropriate that I spoke there first about the book, Rich Land, Waste Land — how coal is killing Australia as the ‘Rich Land’ is embodied on the cover by my photo of the Andrews family at their Tarwyn Park property at Bylong — a spectacularly inappropriate place to mine!

Next day a full busload went on the Magical Misery tour to see current and possible future impacted areas. I’d had to leave, but then I’ve done my own misery tour for the book.

I feel that this Mudgee event foreshadows many such combinings of forces, as people power is increasingly seen as the only tool left to us, because, as I said in my talk, ‘reason and right and forward thinking have been taken out of the process’ by government.


 Visit the Rich Land, Wasteland Facebook page

My new book

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At last I can tell everyone what I have been working on for the last two years, monopolising my mind and my heart, and near breaking both at times.

My new book, Rich Land, Wasteland — how coal is killing Australia, will be in bookshops at the start of May, a joint publishing venture by Pan Macmillan Australia and Exisle Publishing.

I knew the Hunter had been — is being — trashed by coal, and the wishes and wellbeing of its residents apparently treated with contempt by both corporate coal and government. Was this unique or could it possibly this bad elsewhere?

To find out, in 2010 I took my tape recorder and travelled to other coal areas around Australia  — a black road trip in more ways than one.

What I found nationwide shocked me with its scale and scope and speed — and the awful human toll from the frenzied push for profits by the coal and CSG industries.

This was an industrial invasion — ‘a taking over of land and a clearing out of people’ — and it was by mainly foreign forces, with full government support via their loose and biased laws and processes — at best.

In the face of all the spin from industries with bottomless pockets and from gormless governments, I wanted ordinary Australians to know what was happening to their country and their countrymen behind their backs — in the confidence that they will say ‘This is not the Australia we want to be’ when they do.

Food and water security, health and social structure, precious natural resources and places, both environmental and agricultural, were being taken away from us and from future generations — and nobody apart from those immediately impacted knew much about it.

And, tied up and worn down with their specific local battles, nobody knew the full national picture.

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National treasure: ours or China’s?

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Have your say! Deadline 24th February.

If ever there was proof that this mining boom is supreme madness, the irreplaceable natural wonders of the most special parts of the Goulburn River Gorge now belong to Moolarben Coal Mine.

This is 80% owned by Yancoal Australia, that is, Yanzhou, ultimately owned by the Shendong Provincial Government in China.

Between the Goulburn River Stone Cottages and the famous dripping cliff wall, The Drip, is the Corner Gorge (above); the walk between the two is stunning. (See my posts Natural Treasures and Mining Madness). Tourists and bushwalkers, locals and visitors, picnickers and photographers — all are overwhelmed by their grandeur and beauty.

Of course these ought to be national treasures, protected as part of the adjoining Goulburn River National Park, and accessible for us all to enjoy. I had assumed they were.

Community, council and government had asked Moolarben to include the transfer of The Drip and Corner Gorges to the National Park as part of their offsets package.

BUT in Moolarben’s recently released plans for its Stage Two open cut and underground mine expansion offset plans, the company have NOT done so.

This is something that the government should have mandated — in a sane state. So we have to demand they do so.

Please have your say, objecting to the MCC PPR Stage 2 plan and calling for The Drip and Corner Gorges to be transferred into the Goulburn River National Park to ensure the long term protection and appropriate management and legal public access to this regionally significant recreational, educational and cultural river corridor. 

Ask the Department of Planning to appoint an independent expert panel (PAC) to fully scrutinise the strategies, assumptions and actions.

And Julia asks that ‘If you have time, add a few words why you personally value this river corridor’.

It would be good if you can c.c Save the Drip so they have an idea of how many care enough about this incredible place to fight for it.

We only have until Friday 24 February.

Email to : Dept Planning — Mining and Major Projects
                                                   
Refer to: Moolarben Coal Complex Stage 2 _ Preferred Project Report: Project No: 08_0135

Additional notes from Julia:

    The coal mining boom has caused major devastation to the catchment with the Ulan, Wilpinjong and Moolarben Stage 1 megamines. But they are still planning more…

    The full project description is here or here.

    Summary of impacts: Moolarben Coal Complex Stage 2 _ Preferred Project Report

    • The offset package does not include the culturally and scenically significant river corridor known as The Drip and Corner Gorges securing its long term protection, appropriate management and on going public access.
    • The permanent  damage (at least 100 years) to the Goulburn River and connected groundwater system is unacceptable.
    • Estimated cumulative water use by the three coal mines approximately  30-40ML/day (10-12 gigalitres/annum).
    • Water use for just the Moolarben Mine estimated to be 10.55ML/day (3850 ML/annum).
    • Water deficit for 23 of 24 years (up to 1990ML extra water required).
    • No confidence that the groundwater modelling accurately predicts water impacts – there are significant disparities between Moolarben and Ulan Coal Mines groundwater assessments.
    • Water for coal washing should be first sourced from Ulan Coal Mine surplus groundwater before any extraction from the Northern Borefield (adjacent to the Goulburn River).
    • Clearing of additional 900ha of native forest (123ha EEC Box Woodland)
    • Disturbance footprint of 1546 ha of native vegetation including 4.1 km of Murragamba Creek, 4.1 km of Eastern Creek and a direct impact on over 148 archaeological sites (from scatters to rock shelters).
    • Biodiversity offsets are located outside the Hunter Valley catchment, do not represent “like for like’ nor replace the net loss to the bio-region or the east west vegetation corridor connecting the coastal forest to the western woodlands.
    • Production 17 million tonnes of coal or 23.7 million tonnes CO2-equivalent/year of greenhouse gases fuelling further climate instability.
    • Excessive noise levels e g location of the conveyor on top of ridge (must be sound attenuated and set lowered on landscape to minimise noise dispersal).

Eureka — the future we need to foster

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Victoria’s Latrobe Valley is coal power central, and very ‘dirty’ brown coal power at that, with its four power stations, all privately-owned, producing 33% more CO2 than ‘dirty’ black coal. See my posts Coal-powered clouds and Man-made murk from my 2010 visit there.

The oldest station, Hazelwood, alone produces 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions  — 15% of Victoria’s total. It was supposed to close in 2009; environment groups want it shut down now. Given that the best technology can do for the others is try to match black coal’s CO2  emissions, the Latrobe does not fit a low carbon future.

But the Latrobe workforce is dependent on coal and coal power jobs. Future-smart unions and workers in the Valley know this situation can’t continue, and are trying to establish transition industries that not only have a future, but positively help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

It starts with the Earthworker Cooperative — ‘Australian manufacturing: working our way out of climate emergency’ which will now be a permanent link on this site.

Organiser Dave Kerin’s been working towards a positive alternative with his Earthworker strategy, rather than the pointless opposition of jobs vs. environmental needs, for about 10 years, in one way or another. He had looked at the skills base in the Latrobe and sourced a product to which they could be applied, and which had a sustainable future growth market — a locally designed solar hot water system, ‘hotter, cheaper, all stainless steel, gas boosted’.  It will be called Eureka’s Future.

A key part of the plan is that the systems would be part of enterprise agreements, with the energy certificate rebates as incentives for employers — larger scale collective buying, larger scale manufacturing. Five percent of profits would go to social justice programs.

And yet they aren’t getting the government funding they need to start up – and they’ve tried – although the Federal government has committed $100 million and the Victorian government $50 million to HRL’s coal to syngas project.

They do have the firm support of two local manufacturers, Everlast (stainless steel hot water tanks) and Douglas Solar.

100,000 future-smart Australians needed

But they need money. So Earthworker has launched their ‘100,000 Australians Campaign’ to find 100,000 people to become members of the Earthworker Cooperative for $20 each, and to use the funds to establish the factory.

Their aim:  ‘To facilitate the establishment of manufacturing workers cooperatives through our country, especially in the coal regions of Australia, through membership of the Earthworker Cooperative.’

We all know that the planet is in trouble from global warming, and we all know that Australian manufacturing is in trouble. Jobs and profits stay here, and have a future, with projects like this. If our government won’t support workers offering them a non-confrontational and clever solution, we the people, must.

We urgently need such transition industries as Eureka’s Future to help coal-dependent regions like the Latrobe and the Hunter and Lithgow be part of the solution  — not just bear the brunt of it.

This is a movement we all need to foster and grow; visit the Earthworker website and read more. 

I’m from the Hunter and I’m joining. Can you find $20 to join us?

Campaign launch photo from the Earthworker website

Hopes for a saner 2012

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Just before Christmas the battlers for the village of Camberwell were given the most wonderful cause to celebrate.
 
They learnt that the Chinese Yancoal’s proposed Ashton South-East open-cut coalmine had been rejected by the Planning Assessment Commission. (Picture by Simone de Peak, Newcastle Herald)

It would have taken all Wendy Bowman’s  (left) farm and caused Deidre and Toby’s Oloffson’s (centre and right) Camberwell village home to be unliveable. (See my post Camberwell — in crisis from coal)

Potential damage to the alluvial systems was a major reason — as Wendy had been saying forever! — and the NSW Office of Water stood its ground against the government’s urging to have it approved.

The NSW Department of Health also stood firm, saying it would create unacceptable cumulative impacts on the health and wellbeing of the residents. Ashton knew this as they had offered to move them out for seven years!

So it seems to me that, just as the people spoke out at the Planning Assessment Commission hearing — and protested outside  — the bureaucrats are speaking up for common sense and long-term vision in planning, and for caring for the community.

Add to that the victory for the Moores (See my post Bullying the blind?) when NuCoal withdrew from any exploration drilling on their farm, (Picture by Ryan Osland, Newcastle Herald) and it seems that people power is emboldening the public powers to voice the truth, regardless of pressure for royalties. 

Dare we hope for glimmers of sanity in decision-making in this state, for more inappropriate mines — and there are plenty in the offing — being rejected in 2012?

Bullying the blind?

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Last Tuesday I and a bunch of other people from all walks of life and areas stood in hot sun outside Singleton Court House, or retreated to the shade behind for respite.

We held up home-made signs and chanted ourselves dry while the media recorded our anger and frustration: ‘No NuCoal!’ — ‘Save our Water, Save our Land!’ — ‘Enough is enough!’

And at one stage, a spontaneous ‘Where’s George Souris?’ chant arose, George being the sitting State National Party MP. (In case you don’t remember, the Nationals used to be the party who looked after rural interests.)

Why were we there? Because inside that Court House, Jerrys Plains cattle farmers Ian and Robyn Moore were battling it out against NuCoal Mining, after unsuccessfully ‘negotiating’ with them since July 2010.

Picture by Ryan Osland, Newcastle Herald
Ian is legally blind; he can only work his farm, inherited from his father, because he has known it for so long. He couldn’t cope with new obstructions like the exploration drilling, couldn’t move to another property and he wouldn’t be able to farm here, blind or not, if NuCoal happened to wreck his underground water sources. Going to the Land and Environment Court was the final step, armed with an independent water study that cost the Moores around $50,000. And of course there’ll be the legal fees.

While the hearing proceeded, outside the building, speakers from other areas, like Deidre Oloffson (right) from coal-trashed Camberwell and Stuart Andrews (left) from coal-threatened Bylong shared their concerns. Hunter Communities Network’s Bev Smiles and Lock the Gate’s Drew Hutton kept the talk and the chants flowing.

Two days were set aside for the hearing, but by the end of Day One the judge had come to a decision

Although the holes on alluvial soils were denied to NuCoal, the Moores were ordered to allow the three others on higher ground.

The Moores are devastated and not sure what they will do next.

Their supporters may have been a motley lot but not ‘the rabble’ as NuCoal’s senior counsel described us. Like the Moores, we were standing up and speaking out for the future of farming and rural communities in Australia.

If social licence to proceed means anything, inside that court NuCoal would have been in no doubt they have none.

However, ex-Minister Ian Macdonald, currently being investigated by ICAC for an alleged piece of naughtiness, approved that mine in rather whiffy circumstances.

Soon after the Moores’ day in court and the good media coverage of the ‘rabble,’ the government has asked NuCoal to suspend operations until the ICAC result is known.

Cross your fingers!

This virtual world

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This piece was probably one of my first non-fiction articles. Sadly, it remains as true now as when I wrote it, despite our knowledge of the pollutants in those coal power station emissions.

Seeing is believing, right? As old-fashioned sceptics used to point out, however neat a theory might be, it was still debatable, whereas you couldn’t argue with what was in front of your very eyes, now could you?

These days what’s in front of your eyes is probably your computer or your television/video screen. And it seems the powers-that-be expect us to believe what we see and hear there regardless of the silent screaming from the sceptical minority as virtual reality virtually replaces reality.

A classic Leunig cartoon comes to mind: on the floor of a room bare of any furniture but a telly sits one of his waifs, mesmerised by the small screen picture of a sunset, whilst through the window behind him a grand sunset is taking place unnoticed.

Virtual worlds can be created by oft-repeated fallacies as much as by flickering images. Once ships stopped reportedly falling off the edge of the flat world, circumnavigation of the previously ludicrous round one became the reality, and the diehard proponents of the flat world theory became the madmen.

As man’s knowledge increases, unfortunately so does his ego. Scientists kid themselves that once they have worked out how a part of a thing works, they know all about it, by scientific extrapolation and logical extension. The fact that they are later proved wrong by other scientists is irrelevant. Like the innocent, their explanation was “true”, the new reality, till proved otherwise.

As the body of knowledge has increased, it has become more difficult to be the well rounded Renaissance man. So we specialise. Specialists work in rarified worlds, be they shining stainless steel laboratories, booklined studies, humming computer rooms or ivory towers.

They use their brains more than their eyes, focus their thoughts intensively within, not extensively without, their worlds. They forget that our world is a complex unit, that their disciplines, however large, are derived from what already exists in an infinitely larger form. They put the cart of knowledge before the horse of reality.

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Bylong won’t be bygone

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Between the Hunter and Goulburn River regions, there’s a lush green valley called Bylong. Spectacularly edged by the steep escarpments of the Wollemi National Park, it’s home to horses and cattle and a few people. The village itself has a one-stop shop and a population of six, but the greater Bylong area is home to about 60.

Bylong was famous for its annual Mouse Races and for Tarwyn Park, where Peter Andrews OAM developed his revolutionary ‘natural sequence farming’ methods. Now it’s also becoming famous for its strong stand against the coal and coal seam gas companies that threaten its future; they also face a precious metals exploration licence and a geothermal application.

The day I went there, a laden coal train was snaking its way through the Valley to join the northern line to the coal port of Newcastle. It came from the coal-invaded area north of Mudgee, where the villages of Ulan and Wollar are little more than memories now. Bylong has no intentions of joining them in being cleared out by opencut mining or any other form of extractive industry.
This is farmland.

The Bylong Valley Protection Alliance may be small but it’s tech- and publicity-savvy. Their website is bright, informative and always up-to-date, and will be a permanent link from here. I actually didn’t realise I hadn’t already done so; they really deserve to succeed, and have already had quite an effect.

Take a look. Get yourself some of their free bumper or envelope stickers or picturesque ‘pester a pollie’ postcards, like the one at the top of this post. They need a lot of help, because their opponents are seriously heavyweight and cashed-up.

The Korean government-owned Korean Electric Power Company, KEPCO, as the so-Aussie sounding Cockatoo Coal, have two licences to explore 10,300ha here and have now bought historic Bylong Station, a renowned Angus stud, for $18 million. KEPCO is reputed to have bought 30 land titles in the area since they bought the Bylong project for $403 million from Anglo Coal in 2010.

Cascade Coal/White Energy has the nearby Mt Penny exploration lease, controversial at the very least because of the political clouds over the main property involved, Cherrydale Park, being bought by the Obeid family coincidentally not long before the EL was publicly available.

Other large properties like Murrumbo have also been bought up, and the greater Bylong area under threat includes the localities of Murrumbo, Coggan and Growee as well as Bylong itself.

Planet Gas is currently exploration drilling for coal seam gas here, as they are in the Southern Highlands, where Cockatoo Coal is also the threat.

BVPA manage to get good guest speakers and hence draw wider audiences and further publicise their cause. Recently I attended a meeting at Bylong Hall, where journalist Paul Cleary spoke about his new book, Too much luck — the mining boom and Australia’s future.  And it’s not necessarily a rosy one; plenty of good reasons not to mine Bylong.

Outside the hall this old Holden, belonging to Mick Cleary from Grattai, attracted a lot of attention, as it’s meant to, being a mobile protest against injustice of all kinds from what I could read. There were many that applied to Bylong, like this one on the right.

As I headed for the pass out of Bylong towards Rylstone, I could only shake my head —yet again — at the insanity of such a productive region even being considered for mining when we will need more food bowls, not less.

Even if some major agricultural properties are being seduced by the high dollars into selling, as is the right of a landowner, the staunch members of BVPA do not intend to stop fighting to save Bylong from becoming bygone. All power to them.

Bimblebox extension until December 19th!

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It was a November 7th deadline to speak up for nature and Bimblebox, but Paola has written from Bimblebox to say:

‘We were informed yesterday that the comment period for Waratah Coal’s EIS has been extended until December 19th. This is because Waratah has had an incomplete version of the EIS on their website (a major omission being Appendix 10, which deals with the impact on the terrestrial ecology!).

‘The EDO is looking through our ‘short version’ to make sure is all correct for people to sign.’

I will put the shorter submission letter that Paola mentions up on this site when it’s ready. And I’d say terrestrial ecology is rather relevant for a nature refuge, wouldn’t you? Lucky that Friend of  Bimblebox, Sonya Duus, spotted the omission.

Speak up for nature — November 7 deadline

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These are Bimblebox trees, on the Bimblebox Nature Refuge in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, several hours west of Emerald. 

It’s such a special place, of such high conservation value, that the Federal Government chipped in about half the cost of the property, under the National Reserve System, called ‘Caring for our Country’.

This property had 97% remnant bushland still intact, a rarity in Queensland’s Desert Uplands bio-region, a declared Australian Biodiversity Hotspot. Paola Cassoni and friends have been caring for it, but the government clearly no longer does.

The government counts the Reserve System towards meeting their international obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Tick it off — then cross it off for mining? For they gave Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal an exploration licence over Bimblebox, and now the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) confirms that his proposed China First mine would destroy Bimblebox Nature Refuge. 

The opencut mine would take 52% of Bimblebox and the rest  will be subject to major subsidence and interference from underground longwall mining.

People like Paola — and me — sign conservation contracts in perpetuity, to give up their bushland for the good of all, for the sake of regional and national bio-diversity. We remove weeds, nurture indigenous plants, harm not even a leaf that belongs there.

But the wishes of a mining company, for private profit, can negate this, render those cherished natural treasures as suitable for bulldozing. Only National Parks are safe from mining — so far.

Offsets are a sick joke and the myriad variety of living things on Bimblebox face destruction. If this mine goes ahead it will set a precedent for the invasion of all conservation areas.

Please have your say about this travesty and submit a comment on Waratah Coal’s Environmental Impact Statement. The more objections we raise, the louder we rattle the can, the more we will be heard.
 
The period for public comment closes on November 7th. 

Paola and the Friends of Bimblebox have prepared a submission for people to send in, and have information for people who want to write their own. 

Please visit the Bimblebox website to find out how to make a submission.