Federal Environment Minis-ter Tony Burke intended to introduce amendments to the national environmental law to protect the country’s water resources from coal seam gas (CSG) and large coal mining developments.

He said last week that changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act would require federal assessment and approval of CSG and large coal-mining developments which have a significant impact on a water resource.

“Australia’s water resources are among our most vital natural resources and it is important that we ensure they are protected.

“The proposed amendments will ensure that CSG and large coal mining developments are assessed and approved under the national environment law, if they are likely to have a significant impact on a water resource,” Burke said.

He noted that, in the past, whenever he made a decision on CSG, the Australian public expected the department to take into account all the impacts on water resources. He said that the change to the legislation gave the Ministry the capacity to do just that.

The Minister said that while government was seeking more information from businesses, it did not want have a needlessly delayed process as a result.

“The additional information required in many instances will involve data that has already been collected in the State approval process,” Burke said.

“By becoming a matter of national environmental signifi- cance, it will have the full resources of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee and the analysis that flows as a result of that. For projects that are early in the approval process, they will be able to incorporate the additional matter of environmental significance at whatever stage they are at.”

Projects already undergoing an assessment would not be required to restart their environmental-impact assessment from the beginning, Burke said, noting that his department was writing to each company affected, advising them as to what the additional information was, so that they could work on gathering the required information.

Burke pointed out that communities around Australia had raised significant concerns about the impact of CSG on groundwater and surface water resources.

“We remain committed to the efficient administration of environmental law and our focus is on working directly with business, the states and the community to ensure that the Australian public is confident that strong environmental protections are in place.”