‘The True Cost of Mining Tour’ Post 5 View all posts here.
Recently I visited Newnes Plateau and the Gardens of Stone west of the Blue Mountains to inspect damage caused by longwall coal mining. Subsidence from longwall mining causes cracking – both below and at the earth’s surface. Rivers and creeks literally drain away and groundwater dependent ecosystems are destroyed. The cost to our natural heritage is huge. When you see the impacts your have to ask yourself is our addiction to coal worth it?
March 27th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Sixteen years of monitoring cliff collapses at Baal Bone Colliery did not result in any reduction in cliff falls and pagoda damage. When subsidence predictions indicated ‘maximum impact’, this too was monitored, instead of leading to alteration is the mining design. While monitoring and impact prediction at Baal Bone has improved, environment protection has not. Many hundreds of cliff falls have been monitored at this mine.
The Newnes Plateau Swamp Management Plan seeks to repeat this diversionary exercise for the nationally endanged swamps but at Sunnyside Swamp the mining was stopped. The damage can be stopped when the games miner’s play are exposed and the data on damage collected and reported to decision makers.