Say no to Whitehaven’s shonky practices in Queensland

Submissions are now open for Whitehaven’s revised EIS on its ginormous Winchester south mine in Central Queensland.

Whitehaven wants to mine up to 17 million tonnes of coal per year for approximately 30 years from four open-cut pits along the Isaac River that flows out to the Great Barrier Reef.

The Isaac River is already under huge stress from mine’s dumping excess water from their pits yet Whitehaven wants permission to release more untreated water into the river and leave voids after it’s finished mining which will continue to pollute the river forever.

Will you make a ...

Submissions are now open for Whitehaven’s revised EIS on its ginormous Winchester south mine in Central Queensland.

Whitehaven wants to mine up to 17 million tonnes of coal per year for approximately 30 years from four open-cut pits along the Isaac River that flows out to the Great Barrier Reef.

The Isaac River is already under huge stress from mine’s dumping excess water from their pits yet Whitehaven wants permission to release more untreated water into the river and leave voids after it’s finished mining which will continue to pollute the river forever.

Will you make a submission on this supplementary EIS to keep up the pressure on Whitehaven and the Queensland Government to withdraw this foolish project?

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Make a submission on Whitehaven’s supplementary EIS

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Please send a submission to the coordinator general about Whitehaven’s EIS with our form below. Personalise the message by adding a sentence or two of your own or changing the subject line

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To the Coordinator General,

Please accept this submission on the revised Winchester South EIS. Given the extreme and lasting impacts of this mine and the proponent’s inability to address the serious issues raised in comments on the initial EIS I believe the project should be rejected.

I list below some of the key inadequacies of the revised EIS:

The Independent Expert Scientific Committee on large coal mines and coal seam gas noted major water impacts from the mine which have not been mitigated in the revised EIS nor has Whitehaven completed key additional assessments recommended by the IESC.

Whitehaven is proposing to release mine-affected water from dams during floods, straight into the Isaac River and other local waterways, creating serious water pollution risks - especially in light of the existing mines in the area.

Whitehaven still proposes to leave three final unfilled pits after mining which will act as groundwater sinks in perpetuity, dewatering surrounding aquifers and becoming increasingly salty. Whitehaven has not done any modelling of the chemical make-up of the pit water - which was recommended by the IESC.

The project will destroy about 570ha of remnant regional ecosystems, having a significant impact on the connectivity of remaining pockets of habitat. There are multiple endangered species that will be affected by this habitat loss, including Koalas, Northern Quolls and Greater Gliders.

The new ‘Offset Management Strategy’ is woefully inadequate to deal with the habitat destruction proposed.

The revised EIS includes a new ‘Greenhouse Gas Management and Abatement Plan’, but this document fails to propose any meaningful measures to mitigate direct or indirect emissions from the mine.  The revised EIS has also failed to include climate change in risk assessments or to assess the impacts of the lifecycle emissions of the project on the environment and on Queenslanders.

In addition to these clear inadequacies in the revised EIS Whitehaven coal remains a company with an extremely poor track record.

Given the clear inadequacies of the revised EIS, the massive impacts of the project and Whitehaven’s poor track record for working within environmental laws the coordinator general should reject the project.

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