IT was all very predictable; it was just a matter of when the first shots would be fired when extreme environmental groups step up their campaign to destroy the mining and power generation industries.
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Later this month the NSW Planning and Assessment Commission is to due to hold public hearings in Lithgow in relation to Centennial Coal’s application to extend the life of Springvale Colliery.
At issue are more than 300 mining jobs and the only currently viable source of coal for Mt Piper power station.
When the PAC held a similar meeting last year on the Coalpac proposal at Cullen Bullen the hearing was, in the view of many present, hijacked by environmental lobbyists, most of them from outside the Lithgow local government area.
Ominously the Coalpac bid was rejected despite high level support — on environmental grounds.
Similar intense lobbying will attempt to influence the PAC Springvale decision.
Yesterday a coalition of four environmental groups fired their first shot, declaring that the Springvale mine proposal ‘would poison Sydney’s drinking water’.
Only one of the signatories, Lithgow Environment Group, was local.
The others were the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, Nature Conservation Council of NSW and the Blue Mountains Conservation Society.
Campaign director for the NCC, Daisy Barham, said the company proposal is a ‘significant risk to the health of the Coxs River and ignores objections of the Environmental Protection Agency’.
And Colong’s Keith Muir claimed 30 million litres of contaminated water a day would be pumped into the river’s headwaters dumping up to 13,000 tonnes of salt into the stream each year.
“Sydney’s drinking water must take priority over coal mining and economic considerations,” Mr Muir said.
Similar sentiments were expressed by other familiar figures in the movement, Tara Cameron, from the Blue Mountains Conservation Society, and Chris Jonkers, from Lithgow Environment Group.
Mr Jonkers said Centennial should ‘not be allowed to hide their environmentally damaging proposals behind the State Environmental Planning Policy that requires economics to be the principal consideration’.
He claimed toxicity from the mine would ‘kill most aquatic life in the Coxs River’.
Lithgow Council this week unanimously endorsed a call by mayor Maree Statham for the community to initiate a campaign of support for Springvale in representations to the PAC.
