THE battle in Bylong Valley between coal and its opponents is about to escalate, with impacts to agriculture and water resources at the heart of the debate.
The Korean Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) is seeking permission to mine more than six million tonnes of coal a year from open and underground pits for more than 25 years in the picturesque north-western tip of the Upper Hunter Valley.
Its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Bylong mine, with a project boundary of 7000 hectares, has been on exhibition with the Planning Department set to publish public feedback.
Some submissions make a strident stand against the EIS and the mine – which was found in 2014 to be deficient on 12 issues by the government’s agriculture expert assessment team, the Gateway Panel.
Impacts cited then included effects on soil, fragmentation of land uses, groundwater and subsidence.
The project did not have to respond to the Gateway’s findings and progressed to the EIS stage of the planning process.
NSW Farmers’ submission said KEPCO’s EIS was “nothing more than advocacy documents” and the project posed “unacceptable risks” to some of the best farming land in the state, which includes 400 hectares of identified high quality farmland of which about 200ha would be disturbed by the project.
According to NSW Farmers, the EIS (and the agricultural impact statement it sets out) did not address the issues identified by the gateway
However, KEPCO would reinstate more than 200ha of Biophysical Strategic Agricultural Land (BSAL) after mining and said its disturbance was relatively small and would have minimal impact on agriculture.
The company committed to returning impacted farmland to productive use as soon as possible after mining and said land outside of the project boundary would not be affected.
Local landholder group the Bylong Valley Protection All-iance said the mine should be rejected due to impacts on water and agricultural resources.
It included a submission from geotechnical and groundwater engineers Pells Consulting, which noted KEPCO owned land where impacts from longwalling would hit.
Coal mining can disturb groundwater systems and create drawdown on productive bores and the underground longwall technique can cause subsidence and cracking on the surface – potentially impacting both surface and underground water sources as well as pastures.
KEPCO’s EIS forecast impacts from longwalling included subsidence of up to three metres, which could cause cracks up to 50 millimetres wide that could run for hundreds of metres at depths up to 30m.
Some isolated cracking could range between 100 and 200mm.
Citing precedence from underground mines in NSW southern coalfields, which feed Wollongong’s port, Pells said the cracking would cause “substantial degradation” to land.
“If the land subjected to the cracking described above were in private hands, other than the mining company itself, the cracking would be deemed to have unacceptable impacts in respect to crops, and livestock operations.”
KEPCO said such subsidence was common at underground mines and cited “numerous” examples of rehabilitation which it committed to undertake at Bylong where practical.
The company said its longwalling wouldn’t fracture strata above productive aquifers, nor create unacceptable impacts to groundwater supply.
KEPCO’s EIS said the project plan complied with all relevant government regulations and policies, including impacts to groundwater.
Mike Foley
Senior journalist for The Land.
Senior journalist for The Land.
