Centennial Coal wants to discharge millions of litres of contaminated water right into the rivers that feed Sydney’s main drinking water source, Warragamba Dam.
It’s part of the company’s broader plan to expand its Angus Place coal mine – which sits right beneath the protected Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area.
Plans like these pose serious threats to community health, to water, and to our environment – so they must be thoroughly scrutinised.
That’s why we’re calling for our NSW Planning Minister to use his powers to refer the plans to Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek.
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WHY THIS MATTERS
Drinking water for hundreds of thousands at risk.
This mine waste water is full of heavy metals and toxic chemicals like arsenic, selenium, ammonia, and fluoride.
It would be pumped into Wangcol Creek, which feeds into the Coxs River, and eventually into Sydney’s main source of drinking water, the Warragamba Dam – which hundreds of thousands of people rely on for clean water.
Further information
Centennial Coal is the operator of the Angus Place coal mine, located just north of Lithgow in NSW. The company has a track record of causing serious harm to the environment, including:
- In 2010, Centennial was ordered to pay $1.5 million for causing irreparable damage to delicate waterways on the Newnes Plateau
- In 2017, the mining company was fined more than $1 million by the Land and Environment Court for spilling toxic coal sludge into the beautiful Wollangambe River
- In 2021, Centennial entered into a $150,000 enforceable undertaking with the NSW Department of Planning and Environment after irreversibly cracking million-year-old sandstone formations in the Mugii Murum-ban State Conservation Area.
And this isn’t the first time Centennial’s plans have threatened Sydney’s drinking water. Six years ago, successful legal action by the community forced Centennial to build a water treatment plant to stop it pumping contaminated mine water into our drinking water catchment. If approved, Centennial’s current plans would bypass that treatment plant.
Centennial plans to expand its Angus Place coal mine. To lay the groundwork for those plans, the company proposes to pump 10 million litres of untreated mine water per day from Angus Place coal mine to its Western Coal Services site and from there, into Wangcol Creek.
This is up from its current level of 2.6 million litres of water per day. This increase in pollution is alarming – and Centennial’s proposed plans are a significant increase on what it’s currently permitted to do.
This mine waste water is full of heavy metals and toxic chemicals like arsenic, selenium, ammonia, and fluoride.
This mine waste water is full of heavy metals and toxic chemicals like arsenic, selenium, ammonia, and fluoride. It would be pumped into Wangcol Creek, which feeds into the Coxs River, and eventually into Sydney’s main source of drinking water, the Warragamba Dam – which hundreds of thousands of people rely on for clean water.
Over time, this polluted water would lead to increased salinity, arsenic, zinc, and other pollutants above water quality standards in Wangcol Creek and the Coxs River.
These waterways run through the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.
There are also concerns for unique, fragile wetlands in the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area – which is a globally recognised heritage area of ancient forest and rock formation, cultural heritage, ecological communities, and home to countless threatened plants and animals.
Centennial’s plans to pump out such large quantities of mine water may result in the drying-out of and damage to unique wetlands due to a drop in the water table. These wetlands support endangered plants and animals, such as the ‘swamp everlasting’ and the migratory Latham’s Snipe.
The NSW Planning Minister has the power to refer projects for assessment to the Federal Environment Minister, who will assess the projects under our federal environment laws, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act). This creates an additional layer of close scrutiny over projects when they involve matters of national environmental significance
Importantly, our EPBC laws contain a ‘water trigger.’ The water trigger is part of our federal environment laws to reflect community expectations that careful scrutiny of large mining projects is required to properly and thoroughly examine their impact on water before they are approved.
Given the enormous quantities of water involved in Centennial’s proposal and concerns about its likely impact on water quality and water availability we believe these plans must be assessed at the federal level.
Centennial has not self-referred its plans to the federal Minister – so we are calling on the NSW Planning Minister to step in and do so.
