A $400m coalmine expansion that would result in almost half a billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions has been conditionally approved by New South Wales planning authorities.
The NSW independent planning commission (IPC) has given final approval to Whitehaven’s expansion of its Narrabri underground coalmine in the state’s north-west.
Environment groups and Namoi valley farmers said they were incensed by the decision which comes after public hearings were told by the Lock the Gate Alliance and opponents of the project in February the mine would become the dirtiest thermal coal project in Australia.
The NSW Greens and an independent MP said the project would drive further climate catastrophe at a time when residents of the state were already experiencing extreme weather events with greater frequency, had lived through the state’s worst bushfires and were now in the grips of another flood disaster.
“Climate change is costing Australians untold emotional and physical damage but this seems to have had no impact at all,” the Lock the Gate Alliance’s NSW coordinator, Georgina Woods, said. “It’s unfathomable.”
“No perceived benefit from opening a new coalmine or expanding an existing one can possibly compare to the devastation the climate crisis is already wreaking on Australia.”
The project will extend the mine’s life by 13 years to 2044 and increase the total coal mined from 170m to about 252m tonnes.
The commission has imposed 152 conditions on the project, including requirements that it mitigate its emissions, monitor air quality and groundwater, and offset harm to threatened species habitat.
In its statement of reasons, the commission said it found that Whitehaven’s project was not inconsistent with ecologically sustainable development and “would achieve an appropriate balance between relevant environmental, economic and social considerations”.
The commission said it had taken into account the NSW government’s mining and emissions reduction policies and acknowledged the concerns of people opposed to the project, particularly due to the carbon pollution it would cause.
The statement of reason’s shows the project is expected to result in 479.5m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions over its life, 455.6m of which would be produced once the coal is exported and used, known as scope three emissions.
The project would cause 31.19m tonnes of direct emissions (known as scope one).
The commission wrote that the project was a gassy mine and “substantially increased fugitive methane emissions” were expected in years 12 to 19 of the development.
But it said there were opportunities for Whitehaven to “deploy existing, emerging and future technologies” to improve its abatement of those emissions and to potentially benefit from “new revenue streams to the mining sector” by capturing those emissions.
Whitehaven Coal’s managing director and chief executive Paul Flynn said the approval was a “great outcome for the company and the hundreds of employees working at the mine”.
He said it was forecast to deliver $599m to the NSW economy and would result in the continuation of 500 jobs for an extra decade.
“Big investments like Narrabri stage 3 are about lives and livelihoods,” Flynn said.
The climate spokesperson for the NSW Greens, Cate Faehrmann, said it “beggars belief that as NSW is bearing the brunt of floods, the scale and frequency of which we’ve never experienced before, another massive coalmine gets approved in NSW”.
Justin Field, an independent MLC, said the commission’s decision was “unfathomable given the catastrophic climate driven events of the last month”.
He said the NSW Coalition government’s planning, mining and climate policies, made projects like this possible.
“The fact new coal mining can be approved out to 2044 under existing policy makes a mockery of the government’s 50% by 2030 and net zero by 2050 climate targets.”
Whitehaven was awarded its approval just one day after it received another fine for breaches of environmental conditions at one of its projects.
On Thursday, the NSW land and environment court ordered Whitehaven to pay $158,750 for polluting a creek with styrofoam balls at its Maules Creek mine site.
Late last year, the company was ordered to pay $200,000 for water theft at the same site.
But the IPC cannot legally consider the previous actions of a proponent when weighing up an application.
Boggabri farmer Sally Hunter described Thursday’s fine as “chicken feed” and the company had “now been rewarded with approvals for an entirely new and destructive expansion”.
“This is a disgraceful decision by the IPC and will haunt our region and NSW for generations to come,” she said.
Flynn said it was “no surprise” the majority of public submissions the commission received from the local area and wider Narrabri region supported the project.
The commission received 552 submissions in support of the expansion and 1,205 objections. The majority of submissions that came from people in the Narrabri region were supportive of the project the commission said.
“While today is a great result for Whitehaven, it’s fantastic for the Narrabri region too – last financial year Whitehaven spent nearly $50m with around 81 suppliers based in the Narrabri (local government area),” Flynn said.
He acknowledged the approval was subject to conditions which related to carbon emissions. He said these aligned with the company’s plans to reduce the emissions at the mine site over time.
A spokesperson for the NSW Department of Planning and Environment said the IPC agreed with most of the Department’s recommendations to place strict conditions to minimise potential impacts on the environment and the community.
“The Government’s 2020 Strategic Statement on Coal Exploration and Mining in NSW, which sets out its approach for transitioning to a low carbon future, recognises the ongoing importance of the coal industry to NSW over the next few decades because it is a significant source of direct and indirect jobs in our regions and underpins prosperity in many local economies,” the spokesperson said.
