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Mackay Conservation Group is taking Whitehaven Coal to the Queensland Land Court!

 

Whitehaven Coal proposes to develop Australia's largest Greenfield coal project, the Winchester South mine, located in the Bowen Basin.

Alongside the Australian Conservation Foundation, represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, we will argue the Court should recommend no mining lease or environmental authority be granted for the Winchester South project – due to its significant environmental and human rights impacts. Our key arguments are:

 

 

Whitehaven's coal mine will intensify climate change. This mine will extract up to 17 million tonnes of thermal and metallurgical coal annually for 28 years, resulting in at least 583 million tonnes of climate pollution - surpassing the entire annual emissions of Australia. This will further drive climate disasters such as floods, cyclones and heatwaves, impacting the lives and livelihoods of our community 

Whitehaven is not a suitable operator based on their past environmental record. Whitehaven has been investigated and charged numerous times for breaching their environmental conditions at their other mine sites. They should not be trusted to operate this coal mine without damaging Queensland’s environment and jeopardising human health and safety.

Whitehaven's mine will cause ecological destruction. In addition to the climate impacts this mine will cause, through the mine’s development of six large mine pits, the mine would destroy at least 2,000 hectares of threatened wildlife habitat, including for the koala (destroying 242 football fields of koala habitat), greater glider, Australian painted snipe, the ornamental snake and the squatter pigeon.

Whitehaven's Winchester South project will threaten our water. The mine will impact aquatic ecology due to the diversion and loss of approximately 16km of channels of several ephemeral creeks. Whitehaven proposes to leave large voids unfilled and converted into pit lakes with inadequate assessment of likely water quality and the risk of contamination.

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  • Imogen Lindenberg
    published this page in Our Work 2024-04-04 04:12:29 +1000