Mining giant fined for damaging ancient sandstone formations
A coal mining giant in Australia has been fined for damaging sandstone formations, some estimated to be millions of years old, in a conservation area in New South Wales.
A NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment DPIE investigation found that Centennial Coal's Mount Airly operation, north-west of Lithgow, caused fractures to internationally renowned pagoda rock formations.
A DPIE spokeswoman said the breaches were unacceptable after an investigation by our compliance officers.
There were fears that the destruction in the Mugii Murrum-Ban State Conservation Area SCA could be worse than originally understood and the full extent of the damage would take years to uncover.
An independent review conducted on Centennial Coal's behalf found 15 surface cracks related to mining activity in the most western corner of the Gardens of Stone.
The biggest of those reported to the DPIE was 250 metres long.
The land below the rock formations caving in caused the damage to the pagodas.
The company must carry out remediation work, which includes filling some of the cracks.
Yuri Bolotin, a Blue Mountain Conservation Society member, said that would almost certainly fail.
The damage to pagodas is irreversible. He said that the stone towers did not occur anywhere else in the world, dating between six million and 10 million years old.
The mine is about 300 metres below the surface.
The ground movement of subsidence has exceeded 700 millimetres in some sections, more than five times the allowed limit of 125 mm.
The company's environmental impact statement stated that surface cracking was not expected from its panel and pillar mining techniques.
Centennial Coal acknowledged that there may be more cracks that have not yet been identified.
The company was fined $150,000 for the offence and breached its consent obligations.
The money will go towards the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service's conservation work in the area.
The company will have to monitor and remediate any cracks identified over the life of the mine, the DPIE spokesperson said.
Capertee Valley resident Mary Thirlwall described the damage as an extraordinary travesty, but these effects aren't realized for years down the track. Ms Thirlwall considered it a fine to be petty cash for a mining giant.
She said Carry on basically and they've got to because Mount Piper is a coal-fired power station needs coal.
Centennial Coal was able to mine up to 1.8 million tons of coal a year until 2037 because of the expansion approved in December last year.
Centennial Coal has been reviewing its mine design to develop wider pillars in an effort to keep subsidence at allowed levels.
A company spokeswoman said it had implemented changes to achieve its performance criteria. It has begun mining beneath the adjacent Mount Genowlan, but both Ms Thirwall and Mr Bolotin warned it was even more vulnerable than Mount Airly.
The plan to make the Gardens of Stone SCA an eco-tourism playground for 200,000 visitors a year has raised concerns about the NSW government's plans to turn the Gardens of Stone SCA into an eco-tourism playground.
About 120 cliff collapses have been recorded in the Lithgow region, almost all of which were above areas that had previously been mined, according to Chris Jonkers from the Lithgow Environment Group.
He has recently observed a near Angus Place Colliery, which was mined from 1979 to 1980, and was owned by the NSW government at the time.
It's not the kind of place where you want to bring thousands of visitors into unstable areas. A NSW National Parks and Wildlife spokesman said all infrastructure proposals were subject to rigorous assessment and designs would consider fragile areas.
There were areas that we won't have people going into, according to Deputy Premier Paul Toole.