Cliffs crumbled due to coalmining, says new report - 27 April 2010

DOZENS of cliffs have crumbled or collapsed, Aboriginal rock art has been destroyed and metre-wide

cracks opened in the earth as a result of coalmining in the Gardens of Stone wilderness area near

Lithgow, an independent report has found.

The report, to be launched today by the former premier Bob Carr, documents wide-scale, unpublicised

damage, including the destruction of some of the area's unique sandstone pagodas and rock arches.

''In its monitoring reports to government, the coal industry regularly understates the damage caused,''

said Keith Muir, the executive officer of the Colong Foundation for Wilderness, which produced the

report. ''Mine operations do not work to minimise environmental damage and have been largely

unresponsive to environmental concerns.''

Read full article ... Cliffs crumbled due to coalmining, says new report.pdf

Centennial Coal - Meeting with Beau Preston 25/March 2010

Peter Knowland, Peter Docker and Jolieske Lips met withBeau Preston, General Manager, Projects and Business Development on 25 March 2010.

Discussion covered -

• Community Consultation
• Exploration
• Environment
• Planning Process

See Centennial letter of 15 April 2010- Centennial.pdf

NSWFA mining aggreements

Received this email from David Clarke -

"I have attached those documents (see below) from the meeting Tuesday night.(NSW Farmers AGM)

Hope they come through OK please let me know if anything else needed.

You maybe interested to know that Rylstone branch is asking Fiona Simpson (NSWEA mining taskforce Chair) to address all the locals at information event soon.

Will keep you posted."

Clauses_for_Consideration_in_a_Land_Access_Agreement_0309.pdf

Overview_of_Mining_Exploration_Access_v1 2.pdf

Mining_info_sheet.pdf

Mining_case_studies.pdf

Developing_Land_Access_Agreements_mar09_v2 3.pdf

Guidelines for Access to Private Property-draft

Message from Peter Docker:

"I have prepared some guidelines for access to private property under a Mining Exploration Title with attachments that you may like to comment on. It could be given to the locals who attend the NSW Farmer Association AGM Tuesday at 7.30pm. at Running Stream Hall as the mining situation will be under discussion. This is a Group that we need to work with as their mining opposition goes beyond the water issues."

See RSWUA Mining Exploratiion Titles.pdf for draft document.

RSWUA - Update - 24/3/10

• We had a stand at the Rylstone Show with fliers and Tshirts for sale
• Tshirts are for sale at the Foxwood Café, Running Stream
• Your President and Vice-President are holding a meeting with Centennial Coal
• Letters have been written to every government department having anything to do with planning, minerals or water
• Written to the Premier and Opposition Leader
• Registered our website and are working on having an informative, easy-to-use website up and running soon
• Working on specifications for access agreements - our stand is:

NO EXPLORATION BEFORE A THOROUGH WATER STUDY

Water Rights

In the Roman tradition, the idea that water should
be allowed to flow as it had always flowed was described like this:

Aqua currit et debet currerer, ut currerer solebat.

“Water runs, and ought to run, as it has used to run. “ Or, a running stream should be left to flow in its natural channel, without alteration or diversion, and by implication, that water is the common and equal property of every one through whose domain it flows. This is the ancient basis of the modern public trust doctrine. 

“By natural law these things are common to all: the air, running water, the sea, and as a consequence the shores of the sea’…They are not property, or , as has been said, they are in the ‘negative community.’ This is sometimes phrased that they ‘belong to the public’ or to the ‘state in trust for the people.’ ….all systems of water law adopt the elemental idea that running water while in its natural situation is not owned; that the law regulates the use of it, but that rights of flow and use are what the law recognizes, and not property in the water itself. The water itself is ‘common’ or ‘publici juris.’” ^[1] 

So while private property rights are important in understanding water allocation, it is also not historically possible (in places with the English and American common law traditions) to view water in its natural watercourse as solely a matter of private property.
There is always a need to recognize the shared, public nature of water.

1. Samuel Wiel, “Theories of Water Law,” 27 HARV. L. REV. 530-531 (1914).


Posted by Nell Schofield 

Get Vocal

http://www.smh.com.au/business/misgivings-over-minerals-boom-20100316-qcoj.html


Posted by Nell Schofield

An Environmental Oxymoron

• Posted by Nell Schofield on March 13, 2010 at 3:32am
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The Dirty Truth Behind Clean Coal 
By JOSHUA FRANKArial"">
If you tuned in to the Winter Olympics you likely sat through repeated showings of a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign paid for by Big Coal regarding the potential laurels of "clean-coal" technology. The
premise of the 30-second spot is simple: Coal can be clean and America needs to wean itself off of foreign crude and create jobs back home by tapping our nation's vast coal reserves.

Indeed, the effort to paint coal as environmentally friendly is not an easy endeavor, especially when the climate movement has picked up speed and lambasted the industry for contributing more than its fair share to the global warming dilemma.

Activists around the world have targeted coal for a number of reasons.
First, coal is still plentiful (compared to gas and oil) so stopping its use will largely curtail carbon output down the road. Second, it is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Lastly, in the US the fleet of coal-fired power plants is almost old enough to file for Medicare, so these aging plants are sitting ducks for closure efforts.

"NASA climate scientist James Hansen ... has demonstrated two things in recent papers," writes environmental author and activist Bill McKibben about the need to axe coal. "One, that any concentration of carbon dioxide greater than 350 parts per million in the atmosphere is not
compatible with the 'planet on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.' And two, that the world as a whole must stop burning coal by 2030 - and the developed world well before that - if we are to have any hope of ever getting the planet back down below that 350 number."

If this were a prize fight, Big Coal would be the battered boxer on the ropes, shuffling away in an attempt to avoid the repeated jabs anti-coal warriors and scientists have been tossing its way. In 2009, not one new coal plant broke ground in the United States. Over 100 new plants were canceled or abandoned, largely due to the public's awareness that coal isn't the fuel of the future but a scourge of the past.

Clearly there is a reason for the coal industry's recent PR stunts. Big Coal is losing, and its best attempts to persuade the public about coal's green potential are failing miserably.

At the heart of "clean-coal" logic is the idea that carbon dioxide produced from burning coal can be captured and buried underground before it is ever released into the atmosphere where it will contribute to the earth's warming for centuries to come. Despite the fact that this technology, dubbed Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), doesn't actually exist in any real capacity in the United States, it has not stopped the coal lobby from spreading the filthy myths.

Given the reality of climate change, Big Coal is banking on CCS to help it navigate its tenuous future, so much so that they are already touting the virtues of CCS to the public. Not surprisingly, the industry's pals in Washington, including virtually all the senators (Republican and Democrat alike) from coal-producing states, are going to bat for the beleaguered industry.

Certainly the effort to greenwash one of the most prolific and dirtiest energy sources on the planet does not come without a hefty price tag. The proposed Waxman-Markey climate bill, for example, is set to provide a whopping $60 billion in subsidies for "clean-coal" technologies. President Obama is on board and nary a word of opposition has peeped out of the Beltway. To put this amount of money in perspective, the coal industry itself, measured by its falling Wall Street stock, is only worth about $50 billion. The subsidies are a bailout by a different name.

In theory, in order for CCS to work, large underground geological formations would have to house this carbon dioxide. But according to a recent peer-reviewed article in the Society of Petroleum Engineers' publication, the CCS jig is up and the technology just doesn't seem feasible.

"Earlier published reports on the potential for sequestration fail to address the necessity of storing CO2 in a closed system," writes report author Professor Michael Economides in an editorial for the Casper, Wyoming, Star-Tribune. "Our calculations suggest that the volume of liquid or supercritical CO2 to be disposed cannot exceed more than about 1 percent of pore space. This will require from 5 to 20 times more underground reservoir volume than has been envisioned by many, including federal government laboratories, and it renders geologic sequestration of CO2 a profoundly non-feasible option for the management of CO2 emissions."

To put this in laymen's terms, the areas that would house carbon produced from coal plants will have to be much larger than originally predicted. So much so, in fact, that it makes CCS absolutely improbable. By Professor Economides' projections, a small 500 MW plant's underground CO2 reservoir would need to be the size of a small state like Vermont to even work.

"There is no need to research this subject any longer," adds Economides. "Let's try something else."

Let's take that a step further and add that we ought to bag the idea that coal can be clean altogether. The public investment in clean-coal technology is a fraud and will only serve as a life-support system for an industry that must be phased out completely over the course of the next two decades.

Putting billions of dollars behind a dead-end theory will not bring about the energy changes our country and climate so drastically need.

Joshua Frank is co-editor of Dissident Voice and author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect
George W. Bush (Common Courage Press, 2005), and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, published by AK Press.

This article first appeared in Truthout.org

Posted by Nell Schofield

Centennial Coal Exploration Licences

Advertisement in MUDGEE GUARDIAN, Friday, March 12, 2010

Watershed Decision To Hold Miners More Accountable

In a landmark judgment, the NSW Supreme Court today found in favor of two Liverpool

Plains farmers who challenged the right of BHP Billiton to enter their farms to explore for

coal.

The decision has broad implications for all mining companies seeking access to private land

in NSW to conduct exploration and exposes serious deficiencies in the way the current

regime deals with environmental protection.

Read more...

Coal Discussion Day - Friday 19 March 2010

Please pass on to others.

Running Stream coal mine plan ‘reckless’, say greens

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has called on the State Government to revoke Centennial Coal’s approval to extend its exploration licence around Running Street and Mt Vincent.

Read more ...

Council calls for water, traffic studies on Cobbora

Mid-Western Regional Council has called on the Department of Planning to include studies on the impact of the proposed Cobbora coal mine on water, traffic, air quality and the community in its assessment of the project.

To view article click here.

No New Coal

A great turn out for the RSWUA meeting last Friday (Feb 12) in the Running Stream hall. Our guest speaker Tim Duddy said he was inspired by the event and he certainly inspired us too with the story of his battle against BHP and Shenua on the Liverpool Plains.

As with our concerns at Running Stream, water is at the heart of the issue there. It must be protected against the greed of big business and governments that are not acting in the national interest.

We learned that we already have enough coal for the next 400 years without opening any more mines. And with only $1.47 going to the state government from every $100 extracted by these companies, one has to question the logic behind backing such destructive mining practices.

Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon is lending us her support. Check out these links for more info on coal mines and water:

Mining and water articles — No New Coal

Coal = Climate Change: No New Coal! — No New Coal

Posted by Nell Schofield

Running Stream ready to fight

"Running Stream residents are preparing to fight an application from Centennial Coal to extend its exploration licence around Running Stream and nearby Mt Vincent." says the Mudgee Guardian today.

To view article click here.

Mining Lease no. ML 125 (Running Stream)

Details of an environmental impact analysis entitled "Mining, rehabilitation and environmental management plan : Mining Lease no. ML 125 (Running Stream) / prepared by Paul Fazey of CSR Building Materials" can be found here.

Talk by Tim Duddy at the AGM 2009

Tim gave an absorbing and inspiring talk on the activities of the Caroona Coal Action Group who are concerned that mining will damage the aquifers, the life blood of the food and fibre production, on the Liverpool Plains.
For more information go to: http://www.ccag.org.au

Council seeks meeting on trains

Mid-Western Regional Council’s planning and development committee has recommended Council seek a meeting with Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) to express its concern about the lack of infrastructure proposed on the railway line from Cobbora Mine through Gulgong, Mudgee and Rylstone.

Click here for full article.

Fight in the trenches

Robyn Murray writing in the Mudgee Guardian of 03 Febl, 2010 says Cr Russell Holden has called on the Mid-Western Regional Council and community to “fight in the trenches” to ensure that coal trains from the proposed Cobbora Mine cause the least possible disruption to residents and traffic.

Click here for full article.

COAL: Mudgee's future

Diane Simmonds writing in the Mudgee Guardian of 24 Jul, 2006 says Coal is one of the most important, burgeoning industries in the Mudgee region with the existing Ulan Coal, Wilpinjong and Charbon mines as well as proposed mines for Moolarben, Bylong, Running Stream and Airly.

Click here for full article.