SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS COAL ACTION GROUP NEWSLETTER
1 November, 2011

Dear Supporters,
Action is heating up across NSW regarding the contentious issues of
Coal and Coal Seam Gas mining. Politicians are being placed on notice
that communities will not tolerate uncontrolled expansion of these
industries with the impacts on our water resources, agricultural land,
the environment and landowners across Australia.
The pressure is on the NSW Coalition government to deliver on their
pre-election promises to introduce a Strategic Regional Land Use
Planning process, Aquifer Interference Legislation, Agricultural Impact
Statements and new Planning rules. Progress has been slow and the
jury is still out regarding the outcomes…but we can’t let the government
off the hook. In the meantime we have our own battles to fight on the
ground!

Watch Stateline at 7:30 on the ABC this Friday, 4 November
Producer Sharon O’Neill and the 7:30 team visited the Southern Highlands
this week and put together a story on our fight and the impact of Coal and Gas
mining activities on communities around NSW. This will be shown on Stateline
on Friday of this week.

OUR LAND, OUR WATER, OUR FUTURE Rally
To be held in Corbett Gardens, Bowral on Saturday 19 November
between 11am and 2pm. This is the biggest event of the year for SHCAG!
We’ve brought together a group of dedicated people who are leading the
charge in Australia in the fight against unconstrained and destructive Coal and
Gas mining.
The team will be led by MC Alan Jones and include Senator Bill
Heffernan, Drew Hutton from Lock the Gate, Tim Duddy from Caroona
plus distinguished speakers from the Southern Highlands and other affected
communities in Australia. Find out what’s in store for the Highlands if we let it
happen!

Hume Coal buys iconic properties in Sutton Forest
It has finally happened. Under the new front company “Aurelius Rural” set-up
by legal firm Blake Dawson Waldron on September 7 this year, our “open and
transparent“ miners led by Korean steelmaker POSCO have purchased two
properties in the heart of the coal lease. The properties are Wongonbra and
Carlisle Downs. It took quite a few phone calls and agitation before they finally
admitted that they were indeed behind the purchase.

Community Coal Reference Panel
SHCAG is an integral part of this panel set up by the Wingecarribee Shire
Council to review all activities associated with Coal and Gas mining in
Wingecarribee Shire. Deputy Mayor Larry Whipper chairs the group. Our
representatives include Alan Lindsay, Lynne Morrison (from Medway) and
myself.

Hume Coal approaching Landowners for Land Access in Sutton Forest
Hume Coal is continuing to write to selected landowners in the Sutton Forest
lease AUTH 469 seeking access to undertake exploratory drilling for coal.
WE RECOMMEND YOU TELL THEM TO GO AWAY AND LOCK THE
GATE.
YOU SHOULD NOT AGREE TO ANY LAND ACCESS AGREEMENT WITH
HUME COAL WITHOUT SPECIALIST LEGAL ADVICE. PLEASE NOTIFY US.

Join NSW Farmers Association
The NSW Farmers Association led by new President Fiona Simson has been
a leader in the fight for fair and balanced laws relating to mining in NSW. They
need us to support them in their activities. Please consider joining. Call 1300
794 000
 
The Southern Highlands Preservation Fund
Thanks to all of you who have contributed to The Southern Highlands
Preservation Fund. If you have yet to do so, please give generously to
protect the Southern Highlands. Make cheques payable to:
Southern Highlands Preservation Fund, PO Box 3380 Exeter 2579.
Or electronically to: Westpac Bank, Bowral Branch
BSB: 032716 Account Number: 298603

Volunteers
Thanks to all the VOLUNTEERS who are now helping at the markets and with
other activities. Please put up your hand up if you can. Virginia Brousse and
Kim Martin are coordinating volunteer activities. Virginia is away until early
November. In the meantime, contact Kim on 0412 443 142 if you wish to help.
Kind Regards
Peter Martin
Convener, Southern Highlands Coal Action Group.
pmartin@bigpond.net.au
Mobile: 0418 800 111

Inglenook Exploration Licenses

Dear Members
We have now had three meetings of the Community Consultative Committee (CCC), with apologies we haven't had the time yet to write up reports on the meetings.  (It's on the to do list!) However one thing we did get was copies of the Conditions of Exploration for each of the 4 licenses that cover the Inglenook Project (see Reference Documents). They appear to be the same for each, so even looking at just one will give you an idea. It is good to be familiar with them, because from experience with Ulan and Moolarben, it seems that it is up to the community to monitor and report any breaches. The EPA don't have enough staff to do it.
Happy bedtime reading!
Cheers
Jolieske

Posted for President RSWUA

COAL & COAL SEAM GAS MINING LAW

We have managed to organise a workshop on the weekend so if you missed the earlier workshops, Saturday 10th, 2011 is your chance to find out about mining and your legal rights. Dont miss it - it is a VERY informative 3 hours and IT'S FREE! Dont forget to RSVP so we have enough catering.

Posted for President

An Open Letter to All My Friends

16 August 2011

I am sending this message to all my email contacts in the hope that you will read it and perhaps be inspired to help us and others affected by the current scramble by mining companies to extract fossil-fuels under farms, residential land, and areas of national heritage value throughout Australia. Even if you are not personally affected by mining, you no doubt eat food produced by Australian farmers, some of whom are potentially going to lose their farms and their water to coal and coal-seam gas mining. Precious farm land, underground water resources and sensitive natural ecosystems are being lost forever because of rampant mining and state greed.

You may already know that our farm, like so many other farms and rural communities across the country, is threatened by coal mining. Centennial Coal (a mining company owned by Thai company, Banpu) has an exploration licence (cosily named the ‘Inglenook’ project; see: www.centennialcoal.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37&Itemid=165) over a large tract of land in our area, of which our farm forms a small part.

I can’t begin to tell you how devastated I feel about the prospect of coal mining in this area. The feeling of grief, loss and powerlessness is overwhelming. It not just grief about the potential loss and destruction of our farm, our neighbourhood, of the precious underground water we all rely on in this area; and horror at the potential pollution of air, water and land by future mining activities. It is a grief for future generations: for all the humans, animals and plants living on this land into the future. What kind of landscape will be left for them? A once beautiful, once productive land that has been poisoned and pillaged; vastly reduced or permanently polluted underground water; land that is scarred with the remains of open-cut mining activity; subsidence of land above underground mines; ruined ecosystems.

Just as a small example of the implications for us of Centennial’s exploration licence; over the last fortnight, as part of the company’s ongoing exploration work, a helicopter has flown in a linear pattern over our property at intervals of approximately 20 metres, and at a height just above the level of the tallest trees (by my approximation 30 to 40 metres). For two full days, and again just after 9 am last Sunday, the helicopter flew over our farm, crossing the area directly over our house perhaps a dozen times over this period in order to collect data for their proposed mining operation. You have to wonder whether this incredible invasion of privacy could happen over the homes of coal company executives… Remember too that this is only the exploration phase. If so little consideration is shown us in this phase, what will it be like if and when they begin to mine?

Whether you are personally affected by the resources boom – and I know that many people are, even in inner-city Sydney there is a proposed coal-seam gas mine – you now know of someone who is personally affected. But as I said before, my grief about this is not just for myself and my family, and our potential loss of a most beautiful natural environment and a farm and that has been our family home for five generations, it’s about a catastrophe on an enormous scale that is going to affect us all, our children, and the generations to follow us. And it does not, and will not, only affect humans. It will affect all life on this continent: humans, animals and plants.

What can you do? Well you could attend the next Lock the Gate Alliance rally: Stop Coal Seam Gas Drilling in Sydney! on Sunday 18 September 2011, 11:00 am at Camperdown Memorial Park, Corner Lennox & Eliza Sts, Newtown, Sydney.

If you can’t make it to that rally, you can check the Lock the Gate website for details of other events (lockthegate.org.au) or visit the Running Stream Water Users Association blog to find out the latest news in my area (runningstream2850.blogspot.com).

You can write to your local politicians, join any other protests that take place (find out about them at the addresses given above), and lock your own gate against the multinationals if your land is being similarly affected by mining (an act endorsed by Tony Abbott!).

You could also make a submission to the National Food Plan by 2nd September. This is an important opportunity to get the message to the government that the rapid, unplanned expansion of mining is threatening our food producing areas and water resources: www.daff.gov.au/agriculture-food/food/national-food-plan.

It may feel like a David and Goliath fight: what can individuals do in the face of these powerful, cashed-up companies and governments that are only too willing to sell off our fossil fuels and our futures for the relatively small amounts of money and very limited employment opportunities for Australians that the resources companies are offering? But if there are many voices, many people willing to show that they care, I think we can stop mining in valuable farming, residential and other sensitive areas before it’s too late.

Fiona Sim (Member of Running Stream Water Users Association)

Posted for Fiona

Alan Jones speaks to Drew Hutton from Lock the Gate Alliance

Subject: Alan Jones Show - 19 July 2011

Alan Jones speaks to Drew Hutton from Lock the Gate Alliance about the Santos takeover bid for Eastern Star Gas

http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=9457

Source: Rob Binks (MWCAN secretary)

White Energy Ends A$500 Mln Cascade Coal Acquisition Bid

SYDNEY (Dow Jones)--

White Energy Co. (WEC.AU) has decided to cancel a planned A500 million (US$522 million) acquisition of two coal projects in New South Wales, after environmental objections raised uncertainty over the direction of the deal.

White Energy said the acquisition of Cascade Coal Pty Ltd, which is 60.1% owned by five White Energy directors, had "a degree of uncertainty" while experts were consulting on the impact of project development on local farmers and water tables.

The cancellation raises questions about the prospects for major resource development in the world's largest coal exporter, amid growing conflict between mining companies and local farming groups over developing coal and gas.

"There's been a lot of pushback from the community up there," said a person familiar with the proposed deal, who didn't wish to be named. "Getting a mining license up in today's environment is a lot more difficult than it was even 12 months ago."

Craig Shaw, a spokesman for the Bylong Valley Protection Alliance, a group campaigning against the development of Cascade's Mt Penny project, welcomed the decision.
 
"It's a surprising and welcome development. The scotching of this transaction means that the immediate imperative to development has been pulled away."

Australia is the world's largest coal exporter and the fourth-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, with many analysts arguing that it could become the world's largest LNG exporter by 2020 on the back of coal-seam gas developments in farming areas in New South Wales and Queensland states.

Hunter Valley in New South Wales is the world's dominant producer of the thermal coal used in power stations, with the port of Newcastle closest to the Mt Penny site having a current annual capacity of 143 million tons.

But the coalition state government elected last month has signaled it would take a tougher line than the previous Labor administration on the issue of resource development, and promised a review of some exploration licenses granted under the previous government.

White Energy said the acquisition bid had been terminated by mutual agreement with Cascade, after the Cascade directors not associated with White Energy failed to come to an agreement on how several consultations on the environmental, social and agricultural impact of the deal would affect the transaction.

"The committee believes it is appropriate and in the best interests of White Energy shareholders to wait until there is greater certainty in relation to (these) issues," the company said in a statement. White Energy added that it could revisit the offer if development consent is achieved.

"(White Energy directors) had to go back to Cascade shareholders and say, "There are concerns from our own shareholder base about the transaction," the person familiar with the deal said, adding that the directors needed to provide assurances to White Energy shareholders on certainty.

Conflicts between farmers and resource companies in Australia have grown in recent years with coal and coal-seam gas explorers expanding operations in regions such as the Gunnedah Basin of New South Wales, the Bowen and Surat Basins of neighbouring Queensland state, and the Bylong Valley where Cascade's assets are located. Farmers fear that coal development could diminish or pollute underground aquifers.

Several politicians, including the Green party which holds the balance of power in Australia's Senate, and Tony Windsor, an independent who helps the minority Labor government win votes in the country's House of Representatives, have backed their concerns. 

-By David Fickling, Dow Jones Newswires;  david.fickling@dowjones.com