Blue Mountains Conservation Society statementThe Blue Mountains Conservation Society has issued a press release about the cracking. See the BMCS website for more details.
Internationally significant pagodas damaged in NPWS managed reserveCentennial Coal’s Airly Mine has cracked pagodas in the Mugii Murum-ban State Conservation Area in the Capertee Valley 35 kilometres north of Lithgow. Mugii Murum-ban is a small but spectacular part of the Gardens of Stone area.
“As conservationists predicted, mining intensity at the Airly Mine was too great, and subsidence occurred, cracking the reserve’s internationally significant pagoda rock features and opening up several sinkholes”, said Ms Maclean, Vice President of the Blue Mountains Conservation Society. “The surface of the reserve has subsided up to 700 mm, which is more than five times the approved limit of 125 mm.”
“Centennial Coal must be prosecuted and fined by the NSW Government for this significant breach of its development consent causing damage in this National Parks and Wildlife Service managed reserve,” said Madi Maclean.
The mining damage also contradicts commitments made by the company. In July 2014 Centennial Coal stated:“Centennial has not gone back on previous
commitments and we have no intention to initiate a massive subsidence event. Frankly speaking, that is in no one’s interest.”
And at the subsequent public inquiry into the mine in 2015 the miner claimed that:“Our activities will not deliver a negative net effect upon the environment.”
“The Society understands that mining intensity was over 70% coal extraction when the cracking damage occurred. We have written to Planning Minister, Anthony Roberts, asking he uphold the provisions of development consent and ensure that coal extraction is limited to the current level of 46%” said Ms Maclean.
Ms Maclean said that “The NSW Department of Planning and Environment has confirmed that this mining will be required to comply with the subsidence performance measures established under the consent. Coal mining in the Gardens of Stone region is a history of cliff falls, fractured pagodas, stream pollution and drainage of nationally endangered swamps. Enough is enough, the damage must stop.”
Coal mining is now progressing under the Genowlan Mesa, an area of the highest environmental sensitivity with continuous high cliffs and beautiful pagoda-studded ridgelines.
Bushwalk
