In mining we trust?

I wrestle greatly with the concept of big business mining prime agricultural land.

Do I trust them? No I don’t. Does it concern me destroying prime agricultural land for ever? Yes it does. Would I say no to every development? I hope I would be balanced in judging each one in the real world that we live.

Last week Greg Hunt, the federal Environment Minister, approved the Shenhua Watermark coal mine on the Liverpool Plains in northern NSW on what all experts agree is amongst the best farmland in Australia.  It was a project first supported by Labor. Emotions are running high. Are hearts getting in the way of the head? Is there something else?

A matter of trust

It’s a matter of trust. Do we trust all the reports the experts trot out?

Having worked on the creative presentation of many investment documents over a number of years I have seen how well-meaning people have succumbed to fudging fundamental information to get a project over the line. (I am not talking about the Shenhua project).

I am talking about senior executives of the company that has created the investment, the professional accountants that put together the figures and the lawyers who structure the investments. Many have been with the top tier firms.

All of them, male and female, were upstanding people with families, promoting the highest ethics and professional standards. But they understood what their employer or clients wanted, and they understood to get the next job they had to perform on this job. That’s human nature I guess.

(I was complicit as well because I could have walked away from the jobs I worked on; in the end I did).

A matter of principle

It’s also a matter of principle. Land consumed in mining is not likely to be productive again, irrespective of what the promoters tell you. The natural habitat certainly won’t be returning anytime soon.

But we can’t stick our heads in the sand. We need to progress as a country; people need jobs and people all over the world need coal now and most likely into the future. The coal miners at least, are banking on it!

If we look at the Shenhua coal mine as an example, it is going to consume 2,670 ha (10,091 acres) of land. The critics will tell you this is 1.5 times the area of the City of Sydney and 1.1 times the City of Melbourne. It sounds big but it is actually the equivalent of 10 to 20 farms in that region that will be taken out of production. That is not going to break the agricultural bank.

And it is going to generate $300 million in upfront royalties to the NSW government, 600 jobs in construction and 434 jobs for the 30 years that the project is going to extract 5,000,000 tonnes of coal a year. Sounds good.

And here’s the BUT 

But what about the water aquifers that locals are worried about? Shenhua’s own research identifies that the closest aquifer is 900 m from the mine. “This buffer prevents the direct connection of water”, they say.

They report that they will remove 35.7 ML per annum of water on average and state that this is the “equivalent to about 25 per cent of the average pumping rate of 142 ML per annum from a single license agricultural bore… within 10 km of the Project boundary”.

And as Minister Hunt is quoted in the Fairfax media, “The project is subject to 18 of the strictest conditions in Australian history”. Why so and what happens if they inadvertently break those conditions and irreparable damage is done to the aquifers?

Agricultural Minister Barnaby Joyce, who is opposed to the mine, has the answer.  Again in the Fairfax media, he says, “If you destroy an aquifer, it doesn’t matter what conditions you put in there are about making good, you can’t make good. It’s gone.”.

In the end I am with Barnaby; I don’t like the risk to the greater region. Experts can get it wrong; they do every day. And with a water aquifer, once it is gone, it is gone and far more than 10,000 acres will be forever affected.