A group of Queensland farmers and environmentalists fighting one of the nation’s most controversial coal mines has flagged the possibility of a new Supreme Court challenge to stop New Acland Coal expanding through the state’s Darling Downs agricultural region.
After almost six years of claims and counterclaims all the way to the High Court, Stage 3 of the New Acland operations, about 50 kilometres north-west of Toowoomba, is currently awaiting Queensland ministerial sign off and an associated water licence after it won state environmental approval in June.
The New Acland thermal coal mine, near Oakey in the Darling Downs, began in 2001.Credit:Glenn Hunt
The former Coalition government granted New Acland Coal (NAC), a subsidiary of New Hope Group, Commonwealth approvals in January 2017.
“However, there are still obstacles and hurdles in the approvals process for New Hope,” said Paul King of the Oakey Coal Action Alliance (OCAA).
King said the campaign continued to collect an “enormous amount of evidence” Stage 3 could affect groundwater to the extent the viability of nearby farms would be at risk.
If the miner was given its approvals, he said the OCAA would consider asking the Supreme Court for a judicial review into the Queensland Department of Environment and Science’s (DES) granting of the Environmental Authority – a document governing what the miner can and cannot do.
The OCAA believed there were deficiencies in the document “that would allow unlawful activity of the kind we’ve previously seen,” King said, referring to the alleged illegal mining of what has become known as West Pit, which has encroached to within several hundred metres of homes.
While NAC has maintained this mining was allowed, the DES has now determined – after the miner exhausted the pit’s resources – that it was an “unauthorised disturbance”. Rather than take the matter to court, the department announced in June that NAC could instead spend $2 million rehabilitating the pit with koala habitat.
In addition to potential Supreme Court action, King said OCAA could object to the associated water licence, if granted, in the Land Court, where the vexed matter of Stage 3 has been playing out since early 2016.
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