Media Release
Central Queensland coal mines are releasing billions of litres of water many thousand times saltier than the receiving rivers in the catchment of the Great Barrier Reef, prompting concerns about the ecological health of impacted waterways.
Even mines that claim to be “zero-discharge” mines, such as the Kestrel coal mine, are releasing water into the Fitzroy River Basin. According to the Environment Department’s figures, Kestrel is releasing water at a rate of 350,000 litres every second into Crinum Creek – that is an Olympic-sized swimming pool every eight seconds.
The salt content of the mine water was recorded at 5580μS/cm, while Crinum Creek’s background salinity level was just 250μS/cm.
At least another ten coal mines across Queensland are also releasing massive volumes of mine water into the Fitzroy River catchment.
While there has been a very significant rainfall event across Central Queensland in recent days, coal mine opponents argue the Palaszczuk Government could do more to force mines to keep their water onsite and avoid multiple coal water events such is occurring now.
Environmental Advocacy in Central Queensland director Dr Coral Rowston said, “It’s totally unacceptable for the Queensland Government to grant coal mines permission to simply dump their polluted water into the environment during times of flood.
“Just because something is legal, doesn’t make it right. The release of contaminated mine water into the environment should not be permitted by a state government that claims to care about water quality and the Great Barrier Reef.
“The sudden and significant increase in salinity is likely to have a negative impact on the biodiversity and ecological health of the rivers and creeks of the Fitzroy River Basin.
“But it’s not just huge volumes of salt that pose a problem. There will be large amounts of heavy metals and other potentially toxic contaminants in this water that will flow right into the Great Barrier Reef.
“Climate change impacts, such as the floods we are experiencing at the moment, are going to become more frequent and severe. We can’t afford to put more coal mines in Central Queensland and expect to be able to manage the water discharges of dirty water into the largest Great Barrier Reef catchment.
“It’s particularly galling that coal mines that publicly claim to be ‘zero-discharge’, such as Kestrel Coal, are releasing thousands of litres into Central Queensland waterways every second which will be carrying sediment and contaminants to the Reef.”
EnvA - CQ 