Mining The Hunter.

Broadcast: 30/07/2004

Reporter: Giselle Wakatama

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: There's renewed debate in the Hunter over the coal industry.

Green groups are campaigning on the claim that the industry is unsustainable and blame it for the degradation of the Hunter River.

But as Giselle Wakatama reports, the State Government and the Minerals Council say mines aren't the environmental vandals they're often made out to be.

SPOKESMAN: It's a contentious issue, it's a big issue.

This is about jobs, major income on an international basis for Australia.

It's about votes, it's about back-up industry.

It's all of those things, all of those things that we need.

WENDY BOWMAN, MINEWATCH PRESIDENT: They're getting closer and closer with the mining lease now to the creeks and rivers near the alluviums where this precious water lies underneath.

KERRY HICKEY, MINERAL RESOURCES MINISTER: The days are gone where companies buy a truck, a back-end loader and just fill the truck and take it away.

Those days are gone.

They were the cowboys of the past.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: The Hunter Valley was built on the coal mining industry.

Coal was first discovered by convict William Bryant at the mouth of the Hunter River over two centuries ago and it's boomed since then.

In the early days it was man and horse -- coal miners and pit ponies.

Now it's trucks, draglines and other heavy machinery.

But as mining has grown so too have the fears.

16 years ago there was about 320 square km of mine-affected land.

Now there's around 520.

SUSAN STREETER, NSW MINERALS COUNCIL: We certainly believe that it is sustainable.

The coal mining industry is one of the most heavily regulated operations within the State.

Before we were allowed to mine we have to undergo a very rigorous environmental impact assessment process and mostly a commission of inquiry as well.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: Environmentalists say the Hunter River and its tributaries near Singleton are still very vulnerable, that without intervention farmers will be forced off their land because the river is dying.

WENDY BOWMAN: These aquifers in this mining area are all turning very, very highly saline and this is our great worry, because the water in those aquifers must be flowing through the springs and down into the springs and the river eventually.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: Further up the valley, the Hunter Valley is drought-affected but relatively clean.

The State Government says this is because mines are helping to improve river health.

KERRY HICKEY: I mean, I spoke about a river flat that's been reconstructed and shows better production levels than prior to mining.

You have a look at the Bengalla and the Mount Arthur coal rehabilitation, 8km of the river stretch, 60,000 trees.

That's a benefit to that river system.

It is what I consider great works.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: Glen Albrecht is an environmental lecturer at the University of Newcastle.

DR GLENN ALBRECHT, NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY: The river's been declared by the Healthy Rivers Commission as being one of the worst in NSW in terms of its ecosystem health and so mining is now adding to the pressures which have been building up over the last 200 years.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: One of the waterways the doctor is concerned about is this creek behind me.

Mussel Creek was named 180 years ago due to its abundance of freshwater mussels, but Dr Albrecht says the mussels have disappeared, unable to cope with overgrazing and extensive land clearing.

And Dr Albrecht's worried if mining continues to expand in the Upper Hunter the creek will become further stressed due to higher levels of salinity and other forms of pollution.

This creek is only a kilometre or so from the nearest mine.

Not only is it battling with introduced plants like willows, but as trucks roll over the bridge coal dust settles on the water and further chokes it up.

DR GLENN ALBRECHT: The mussel is a symbol of the ecosystem health in this region and the fact that we're losing it is an indication that -- the mussel's a bit like the canary of the old underground mine.

Once you start losing your freshwater mussels, you know you've got a system which is declining in health and in some cases it has become a basket case.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: There's also concern about rising salinity.

Green groups want ground water rehabilitation to be a priority of mining companies.

SUSAN STREETER: The major issue would be impacts on salinity quite a long time after mining has completed and those are the areas that the industry is currently putting tens of thousands of dollars into investigating to ensure that those impacts are managed.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: Earlier this year, Clean Up Australia chairman Ian Kiernan visited the area.

He was horrified at the state of the river.

Last week he had a more optimistic view of the ground water problem.

IAN KIERNAN, CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA: I think what needs to happen is we need to have a well-put-together report on the state of the creeks and the rivers and the Hunter River so we can draw a benchmark, so we know that we must not go back from that and we must go forward from that.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: Well, they can't go forward at Bowmans Creek near Singleton.

Minewatch President Wendy Bowman tells a sad story.

WENDY BOWMAN: In the 1980s, mining companies -- I won't mention any names -- were allowed to mine under Bowmans Creek.

Long ore mining underneath the creek which is right through under the alluviums.

Well, the owner of one of the properties one day was driving across his creek crossing to look at his cattle and realised that the water that had been flowing the day before had stopped.

He walked up the creek, into the next-door property, and found that the creek bed had cracked and dropped.

And the water was going down a plug hole.

To this day there is still no water flowing down that Ravensworth property.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: To keep mining, companies must abide by the State Government's conditions.

In the past five years, 61 Hunter Valley company mines have been issued with fines of less than $2,000.

WENDY BOWMAN: Well, $1,500 to a mining company would be their milk money for the week, wouldn't it?

If they're going to fine these great big companies -- and let's face it, they're nearly all big international companies -- they've got billions of dollars behind them.

GISELLE WAKATAMA: The mining industry says it doesn't get special treatment and it never will.

SUSAN STREETER: The Government has in fact, very substantially increased the penalties over the past several years and I believe they're also in the process of reviewing that legislation to again increase the penalties.

But the penalties on the mining industry are the same as the environmental penalties which are applied right across all industry in this State.

In fact, the latest changes to those penalties brought them into line with the ordinary penalties which the Environmental Protection Authority and would apply to any sort of industry operating in the State.