A new mine seeking to dig coal for 90 years, until the year 2019 and clear 6,500 hectares of koala habitat, more than any other mine in Australia.
Whitehaven Coal’s proposed Blackwater South coal mine would be an entirely new ‘greenfield’ open cut mine. The project is located on Ghungalu Country near Blackwater in Central QLD. It plans to dig up 800 million tonnes of coal over 90 years and operate until 2019. The project would produce more than 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon pollution from the burning of the coal it mines and million more tonnes of pollution through the release of fugitive methane gas from the open cut pits.
The project has the biggest planned destruction of koala habitat of all proposed coal mines in Australia. If approved, more than 6,500 hectares of koala habitat will be cleared (1), more than 3,200 MCG sized football fields. Ecological surveys conducted for BHP Mitsubishi identified more than a dozen koalas (2) in habitat that is proposed to be cleared for open cut coal pits. Photos and drone footage of the koala habitat proposed to be cleared are available here.
The western part of the Project area (approximately 5,343 hectares) is located within the Central Queensland Priority Agricultural Area. The planned open cut pits will impact large areas of land zoned as ‘priority agricultural areas’, ‘strategic cropping land’ and floodplains. (3)
The open cut pits will impact surface water flows, groundwater quality, and lead to groundwater drawdown and depletion of underground aquifers that will impact on other water users, such as the surrounding farming properties. The project is located in an area of intensive coal mining activity where impacts on groundwater from multiple projects overlap.
- Blackwater South - Terrestrial Ecology Report, page 102-103
- ibid
- Fig 5, page 15 of Blackwater South Initial Advice Statement IAS)
