THE impacts from the Drayton South Coal Project will not be significant enough to cause the thoroughbred operations to leave the Hunter Valley.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
That is the opinion of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment, who this week released their assessment of Anglo American’s Drayton South project, and concluded the proposal should be approved.
Next step in the process is the Planning and Assessment Commission (PAC) hearing to be held on Thursday, September 10, at Denman.
This will be the third PAC on the project with the two previous reviews rejecting Anglo’s plans.
The principal reason for their rejection has been in PAC’s opinion that the impacts from the open cut mine will be to adverse on the project’s neighbours the international thoroughbred stud, Coolmore and Darley (Woodlands).
After each PAC refusal, Anglo has headed back to the drawing board and redrawn their plans basically shrinking the size of the mine.
Where in the first proposal the company wanted to extract around 170 million tonnes of coal, their latest project will mine only 75 million tonnes.
Anglo argues the third mine plan will have no impact on their neighbours and the Department of Planning agrees with that view – in fact, the department has supported each of the previous plans only for the final arbiter PAC to reject their recommendation for approval.
The department says in their latest assessment Anglo would need to employ best management practice on site during any mining operations, and minimise the impacts of the project on the Coolmore and Woodlands stud.
Anglo American’s Drayton South project director Rick Fairhurst said the recommendation validated the detailed scientific assessments and peer-reviewed reports contained in the project’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
“The department’s preliminary recommendation agrees with Anglo American’s detailed and peer reviewed assessments, which found the project will have no adverse effects on the health of horses on the Coolmore and Woodlands Studs,” he said.
Hunter Thoroughbred Breeders Association (HTBA) president Cameron Collins describes the department’s recommendation as a licence to destroy the Hunter thoroughbred industry.
“Based on science and logic this project should never be approved,” a frustrated Dr Collins told The Argus.
Speaking after his annual stallion parade at Vinery stud, Scone general manager Peter Orton voiced his disappointment with the whole planning process that resulted in two highly-successful international industries equine and coal mining being pitted against each other.
“It should never come down to equine versus coal; they are both vital industries,” he said.
“Planning is about resource management and we have to do a far better job of that than we are now.
“The current system is not working for my industry nor for the miners.”
Mr Orton, who has worked in the Hunter’s thoroughbred industry for 35 years, says his industry is seen as a tall poppy that needs to be cut down.
“But I don’t want to be part of this fight,” he said.
He wants recognition of the need to protect prime agricultural land, which only makes up a small percentage of the Australia’s land area.
“The Hunter River’s alluvial flats need an immediate protection order – like we protect world heritage sites; that is how important they are to all of us,” he said.
“We have a sustainable international business here in the Upper Hunter and it is so fortunate to have few of the boom and busts cycles of other industries, which makes it all the more important to consider when it comes to planning decisions that affect our operations.”