Steve Phillips
Twenty kilometres west of Muswellbrook, near the town of Wybong, there is something rare — a large, intact and quality stand of remnant Hunter Valley-floor bushland. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the site is rich in bio-diversity, much of it rare and threatened.
The site is home to at least 178 animal species, including four threatened bat species, the squirrel glider, the koala, 14 threatened bird species and many more protected under international covenant. It is also home to at least 420 species of native flora, many of which are threatened and three of which are endemic, including one newly discovered species of orchid found only at this site.
The site is threatened by something not so rare in the Hunter Valley — a coal corporation is planning to bulldoze it, dig it up, sell the coal and leave it for dead.
As well as destroying irreplaceable Hunter Valley-floor bushland, the proposed mine at Anvil Hill would destroy an area rich in Aboriginal heritage. The mine would also literally remove a large part of the catchment of Wybong Creek, an already highly stressed major tributary to the Hunter River. The mine would require the removal of two ephemeral streams, and the relocation of two intermittent creeks.
As with any coalmine, the company, Centennial Coal, would need to discharge contaminated water into the local and regional environment during the mine's operation, and would move on at the end of the life of the mine.
Centennial Coal is one of the largest home-grown coal corporations in Australia. Production troubles at its Newstan mine at Lake Macquarie, and its fixed price domestic power coal contracts (that mean it is largely missing out on the export coal price boom), have sent the company's share price tumbling.
Centennial has pinned its hopes on the proposed Anvil Hill open-cut coalmine near Wybong. With a planned area of 2000 hectares, and planned production of up to 10.5 million tonnes per year, the Anvil Hill mine will be one of the largest in the Hunter, and certainly the largest mine that Centennial has ever operated. The company's current biggest mine is Newstan, a 4 million tonne per annum capacity long-wall mine.
The proposed mine has been chosen by a new alliance of local, regional, state, national and international groups and individuals as the iconic new anti-coal campaign in the Hunter. The Anvil Hill Alliance, launched at NSW Parliament House on March 7, is drawing a line in the sand and attempting something that has never been done in the Hunter — defeat a proposed coalmine.
The Anvil Hill Alliance includes more than 20 environmental organisations, such as Anvil Hill Project Watch (a local residents' group), Minewatch (Hunter grou) and Rising Tide, as well as individuals, including several workers in current coalmines who have seen first-hand the devastation the coal industry causes and are standing up to say "no more".
There is nothing special about the Anvil Hill mine proposal. For many, the main problem with it is shared by all coalmines — climate change.
In the face of record temperatures and increasingly desperate warnings from scientists, climate change, and what to do about it, is finally attracting broad public concern in Australia. Unless greenhouse pollution is cut swiftly and radically, scientists warn, the world will slip into runaway climate chaos, leading to unprecedented waves of species extinction, and massive disruption and destruction of human societies.
The Hunter is one of the world's carbon capitals, home to a rapacious coalmining industry and the most voluminous coal exporting facility in the world. The industry is fast expanding too, anticipating an increase in Hunter coal exports of up to 70% in the next few years, from 80 million tonnes per year currently to 138 million tonnes in 2009.
Choosing just one mine to fight might seem like a token gesture, but there are some good reasons why Anvil Hill is important.
First, Centennial Coal has expressly linked the construction of this new mine with the construction of the new coal loader planned for Newcastle Harbour. Centennial is part of the BHP-led consortium building the new coal loader so it can access the export market with Anvil Hill coal.
There is strong local opposition to the mine, and the area that would be destroyed by the mine has catchment, Aboriginal heritage and bio-diversity values that would warrant a vocal protection campaign even in a world not on the brink of climate disaster.
The NSW government claims to be acting against climate change, but while it continues to oversee the expanding Hunter coal behemoth, this claim will be as empty as the coal corporations' claims to be concerned about sustainability and the environment.
If the world is to avoid the looming catastrophe of runaway climate change, governments are going to have to find the courage to say "no" to the coal industry. The people are going to have to make them. It will start with one mine — Anvil Hill.
[Steve Phillips is a member of Rising Tide Newcastle.]
From Green Left Weekly, April 5, 2006.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.