PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Queensland Parliament has passed the Environmental Protection (Underground Water Management) and Other Legislation Amendment (Epola) Bill, meaning that mining projects that are “already advanced” in the approvals process will be required to obtain an associated water licence.
However, a late amendment to the Bill cleared the $16-billion Carmichael coal and rail project of this hurdle.
The amendment read that projects that have already finalised proceedings in the Land Court will be exempt from going through the process, and will be able to obtain an associated water licence from the government.
However, the exemption will not apply to coal miner New Hope Mining’s Acland coal mine expansion, which will expand the mine’s yearly output from 4.8-million tonnes to 7.5-million tonnes and will extend the mine life beyond the current end-date of 2017/18.
New Hope previously warned that the Epola Bill risked redundancies at the Acland mine, as the A$900-million expansion of the mine could be delayed by as many as two years.
New Hope MD Shane Stephan previously warned that resources within the current mining lease would be declining in 2018, and without the approval of a further mining lease by the first quarter of 2017, redundancies at the Acland mine were likely to start from April next year.
Some 300 employees and contractors will likely be affected.
The miner on Thursday said that it had requested that the transitional provisions be modified so that projects like the New Acland Stage 3 expansion, which had already been through detailed underground water impact assessment studies, would not have to “needlessly” repeat the process.
Queensland Environment Minister Steven Miles said on Thursday that “future” mining projects would have the environmental impacts of their groundwater take initially assessed under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 as part of their environmental authority application.
He said stronger rights for farmers was another outcome of the new Bill.
“This will be achieved by improving the existing ‘make good’ obligations under the underground water management framework in the Water Act 2000.
“When they become law, the amendments we passed will ensure landholders are in a stronger negotiating position and are fairly compensated for impacts on their infrastructure and on the water resources they rely on,” Miles said.