The $80 million facility is to be constructed beside the Wallerawang-Portland Road at Pipers Flat.

It will enable coal for the Mt Piper and Wallerawang power stations to be delivered by rail for the first time, opening up competition in supply contracts to more mines around the State.

The coal will be delivered to the power stations by a conveyor system linked to the new facility.

When the proposal was first announced more than two years ago it attracted a storm of opposition from lobbyists within the district community.

Reservations were also expressed in Lithgow Council and from the mining union about the likely impact on established local suppliers.

Yesterday the District President of the United Mineworkers Federation, Cr Wayne McAndrew, took issue with the Delta statement that the unloader would ensure a ‘reliable and low cost coal supply’ for the power stations.

“They already have a reliable and low cost supply from local mines,” he said.

“Delta always push their supply contracts very hard.”

He said the union had ‘some concerns’ over the issue.

Cr McAndrew said it would have been a far better proposition if the government had announced the sought after additional units for Mt Piper at the same time as the unloader decision.

“If the two additional units went in the western mines would not be able to meet the demand and there would have been no problem,” he said.

“We would have liked to have seen the two projects coming on line hand in hand.”

Cr McAndrew said that after the project had ‘gone dead’ for so long that he expected a lot of people would now be ‘up in arms’.