At least eight coalmining projects in Great Barrier Reef catchments and floodplains have been exempted from requiring environmental impact statements by the Queensland government, with six already gaining state environmental approval.
A coalition of environmental groups that includes the Australian Conservation Foundation, Birdlife and the Queensland Conservation Council is now lobbying the Palaszczuk government to end such exemptions.
While at least seven projects will probably require federal approval, the Environmental Defenders Office acting managing lawyer, Matt Floro, said the public could be left unable to contribute to their terms of reference or give proper scrutiny without an EIS.
“Without an EIS, mining companies can largely define for themselves what issues they address in their environmental assessments,” Floro said. “The risks with this approach are obvious.”
The state’s environment department said it conducts “thorough and robust assessments against stringent environmental standards on all projects”.
But the finding of a panel of independent experts established by the federal government has raised questions about the department’s process.
In assessing a new coalmine that was given an “environmental authority” earlier this year by the department, the Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development found “substantial shortcomings in the proponent’s analysis … that currently prevent reliable assessment of the project’s environmental impacts”.
That project, Bowen Coking Coal’s Isaac River mine, would produce 0.5m tonnes of coal a year for five years. But others squeaked in just under the 2m tonne threshold that would require the miner to prepare an EIS.
The nearby Vulcan South project is set to produce 1.95m tonnes of coking coal every year and would clear 1,000 hectares of koala and at least 75 hectares of greater glider habitat to do so. The adjoining Vulcan Complex, also owned by Vitrinite, would dig up 1.95m tonnes of coking coal every year as well.
Another to come in just under the 2m tonne threshold is Magnetic South’s Gemini mine, which would produce 1.9m tonnes of coal a year for 25 years.
Other projects not required to produce an EIS include the proposed extensions of the Meandu thermal coalmine until 2039, the Caval Ridge mine until 2056 and the Middlemount coalmine until 2044.
University of Queensland environmental policy expert Jonathan Rhodes said an approval process that does not consider cumulative effects of projects is akin to “death by a thousand cuts”.
“Where you are getting these small impacts, but there are so many of them, the problem is really with the regulation,” he said.
The coalition of environmental groups has calculated that, collectively, these eight projects represent approximately 1,866m tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions across their lifespans.
ACF’s Brisbane-based clean energy and climate campaigner Jason Lyddieth said the state government was “having its cake and eating it” by making new renewable energy announcements while expanding the coal and gas industry.
“The International Energy Agency has said that we can’t have any new coal or gas projects anywhere in the world if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change,” he said. “That Queensland is not only approving new coalmines, but the fact that they don’t even have to put in an EIS, is absolutely crazy.”
The environment department said reforms currently before parliament would “ensure the state’s environmental framework remains modern by providing greater consultation on resource projects, ensuring EISs remain up-to-date and early certainty on clearly unacceptable projects”.
“It contains proposed amendments, which would require the mandatory public notification of major amendment proposals for resource sector projects and cause EISs to expire after three years so that any proposal must remain current,” a spokesperson said.
But the Lock the Gate Alliance Queensland spokesperson Ellie Smith said the reforms must go further to ensure all new mine proposals were required to lodge an EIS.
“An assessment that goes on behind closed doors with [the department] is not the kind of rigorous assessment that we get with an EIS,” she said. “That public scrutiny is so important.”
