Port Waratah Coal Services - Terminal 4

"I object to this project and believe that the community health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts will have far outweigh any short term benefits it is claimed it will deliver. These include:

Global warming: The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4's will begin operation.
The Hunter Estuary supports 112 species of waterbirds and nationally and internationally listed threatened species, including the Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Deep and Swan Ponds: The Project will wipe out 80% of Deep Pond, which supports at least 11 species of migratory recorded and above the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population for three migratory shorebird species, and will develop part of Swan Pond which supports three species in numbers that exceed the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population.
Misuse of public conservation lands: Swan Pond is public land, owned and managed by the National Parks Service under Part 11 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act. It is part of a highly successful long-term restoration project, the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project (KWRP) and has been the site of significant hours of volunteer labour by the local bird watching club.
Air quality: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley communities are impacted by dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of coal. An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.
Air quality modelling flaws: PWCS's air quality modelling continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.
Particle pollution from rail transport: The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.
Justification for the project: There is no justification for the project. PWCS does not commit to building T4 and only suggests an indicative build date of 2015 with operation maybe in 2017. During a major downturn in global coal demand, Newcastle's approved coal export port capacity of 211Mt seems optimistic. Last year only 141Mt of coal was exported meaning 60Mt or 42 per cent of capacity was uninstalled.
Employment: The 120 Mt facility proposed in the EA identified no additional employment would result from its operation. The revised T4 project of 70Mt million of the RT/PPR is identified as employing 80 additional people. How is this possible? This dubious additional employment is not explained.
Economics: PWCS's claimed economic benefits to the region are based on a type of economic modelling the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. The original economic assessment of the T4 project suggests its annual operating costs will only be between $45-50 million a year. Since that assessment was made, the size of the project has "almost halved", so the amount of money it will "inject" into the economy has presumably declined considerably. For the terminal to achieve its economic potential, a lot more coal has to be dug up and exported. This means that a lot more bush and agricultural land needs to be turned into coal mines. A lot more coal trains need to pass through Newcastle's suburbs. At the site of the proposal, a significant wetland would have to be destroyed. And, of course, the extra coal being burned would contribute to climate change. None of these costs are considered in the economic assessment commissioned by PWCS. (Read Rod Campbell's economic analysis here.)"

Due to ongoing eye problems I cannot read the new report but another coal Loader in Newcastle should not be built. The people of Newcastle should not be subject to more coal piles with added pollution in our city. Coal in the future will be a thing of the past and Newcastle and our once pristine Hunter Valley will be destroyed along with the industries that have supported us over many generations. We need food, fresh air and clean water to sustain future generations in this now hungry for money world. But this NSW government like all their predecessors only think of the money and what can do for Sydney. Lets look for alternatives before it is too late for my grandchildren and great grandchildren. I care about mine, do you care about yours?

"I would like to share my concerns about the installation of a 4th coal terminal on Kooragang.

As a resident of Stockton, and a health professional, I have severe concerns about the impact coal dust is having on local residents. It is imperative that the residents of communities such as Stockton and Mayfield are consulted on an individual basis to find out whether upper respiratory conditions and allergies have worsened along with the increasing amounts of coal that are passing through the area. Not all of these health issues will be reported because they are low grade, chronic conditions. These may not be weighing down our health system now, however they will be having an impact on general productivity and emotional well-being, and are likely to lead to more serious health conditions in the future.

Extra coal in the area also means extra ships passing through our waters. There are already serious concerns about foreign algae and marine life damaging our own river Eco-system, and this danger is only going to increase with more traffic. I am aware that there are procedures in place for bilge water to be emptied before ships enter Hunter waters, however I am also aware that these are not heavily policed - information that has been shared with me by people who are working with the loaders and the ships.

Besides my many concerns about the environment and the health of my community, I also believe that a 4th terminal is simply a waste of money. Coal is a finite resource, and the time is going to come in the not too distant future, where the demand is going to decrease, and money spent on roads and infrastructure, as well as the loader itself, could be utilised for many, many, more productive services for this region."

"I am opposed to the T4 project for the following reasons:
1. The residents in my suburb (mayfield east) are exposed to a lot of pollution from the current coal terminals and the trucks that are travelling to the Port as well as close-by industry. These effects are cumulative. Already, my house, my garden and presumably my lungs are coated with coal dust - due to the stockpiles of coal at the end of my street - and yet regardless of this, you wish to add to this damage with a further terminal. We do not need more coal terminals in this city we need less.

2. The T4 will destroy the habitat of birds which migrate from Siberia to Deep Pond. This is a miraculous example of how our whole world is connected in the most unlikely of ways. Yet you will destroy this link. It is an environmental crime - the consequences of which are only going to be felt when it is too late to undo the damage.

3. The pollution from dust, coal, and train noise - is already unacceptable - yet you plan to more than double it.

4. Increasing global warming means that governments will be so consumed with damage bills (typhooons, floods, bush fires, cyclones) - that there will be less and less money for government services such as health, education, welfare. The gap between the rich and the poor will increase. Resources will become scarcer. The result will be a lot of suffering. For this, I hold you who are making this decision which promotes global warming rather than prevents it - as personally accountable."

"One would think that now the world is recognising the damage mankind is doing to our beautiful planet our politicians would turn their power into keeping the valuable natural places and wildlife instead of ever plotting more money making projects. And this project isn't dire for mankind, it was about making more money ultimately for some big foreign owned company (that's usually the way). But now that goal isn't attainable so PLEASE turn your thinking around and do what your constituents want - to value our natural assets, stop selling us off to the rest of the world and treasure all these places and creatures that existed before we were here.
I'm NOT a greenie but most of us can see that this plan was always made by the big boys for the big boys so they could make more money. When will the politicians learn that money isn't everything and Australia is going pretty well anyway. Maybe they need to watch more nature documentaries on TV. They'd have to be blind not to get the message."

I wish to state my opposition to the T4 coal loader in Newcastle. The huge increased capacity generated by T4 is only required if many more large coal mines are created in the Hunter Valley and the Liverpool Plains. Unfortunately, many Hunter people have not ventured further west and are not aware that the Liverpool Plains with its rich deep black soil is some of the worlds best farming land. They think only of the impact of T4 on the city of Newcastle. Already a lot of the highly productive land of the Liverpool Plains has been purchased by large coal companies from countries such as China. If T4 is allowed to proceed this will give these companies an "open gate" to destroy our valuable and irreplaceable farm land on the Liverpool plains, destroy a remaining remnant of amazing biodiversity at Maules Creek and give a licence to reduce and inevitably contaminate the water table and waterways in this area. By destroying farmland it is inevitable that the, until recently, thriving rural communities such as Gunnedah will also be severely impacted. Already their social structure and cohesion is breaking down due to the impact of coal mines currently operating in the area and their boom/bust economies. Once a farm is sold the immense expertise and knowledge held by farming families is lost and will not be passed on to the next generation. Australia cannot afford the great losses that the T4 represents. If this is approved we really can call ourselves nothing else but the "stupid" country.

"Global warming: The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4's will begin operation.
The Hunter Estuary supports 112 species of waterbirds and nationally and internationally listed threatened species, including the Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

Deep and Swan Ponds: The Project will wipe out 80% of Deep Pond, which supports at least 11 species of migratory recorded and above the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population for three migratory shorebird species, and will develop part of Swan Pond which supports three species in numbers that exceed the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population.

Misuse of public conservation lands: Swan Pond is public land, owned and managed by the National Parks Service under Part 11 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act. It is part of a highly successful long-term restoration project, the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project (KWRP) and has been the site of significant hours of volunteer labour by the local bird watching club.

Air quality: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley communities are
impacted by dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of coal. An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.

Air quality modelling flaws: PWCS's air quality modelling continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.
Particle pollution from rail transport: The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.

Justification for the project: There is no justification for the project. PWCS does not commit to building T4 and only suggests an indicative build date of 2015 with operation maybe in 2017. During a major downturn in global coal demand, Newcastle's approved coal export port capacity of 211Mt seems optimistic. Last year only 141Mt of coal was exported meaning 60Mt or 42 per cent of capacity was uninstalled.

Employment: The 120 Mt facility proposed in the EA identified no additional employment would result from its operation. The revised T4 project of 70Mt million of the RT/PPR is identified as employing 80 additional people. How is this possible? This dubious additional employment is not explained.

Economics: PWCS's claimed economic benefits to the region are based on a type of economic modelling the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. The original economic assessment of the T4 project suggests its annual operating costs will only be between $45-50 million a year. Since that assessment was made, the size of the project has "almost halved", so the amount of money it will "inject" into the economy has presumably declined considerably. For the terminal to achieve its economic potential, a lot more coal has to be dug up and exported. This means that a lot more bush and agricultural land needs to be turned into coal mines. A lot more coal trains need to pass through Newcastle's suburbs. At the site of the proposal, a significant wetland would have to be destroyed. And, of course, the extra coal being burned would contribute to climate change. None of these costs are considered in the economic assessment commissioned by PWCS."

"I strongly object to this project. The negative community health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts will far outweigh any short term benefits it is claimed this project will deliver. Reasons to reject this proposal include:

Global warming: The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4 will begin operation.

The Hunter Estuary supports 112 species of waterbirds and nationally and internationally listed threatened species, including the Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).

Deep and Swan Ponds: The Project will wipe out 80% of Deep Pond, which supports at least 11 species of migratory recorded and above the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population for three migratory shorebird species, and will develop part of Swan Pond which supports three species in numbers that exceed the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population.
Misuse of public conservation lands: Swan Pond is public land, owned and managed by the National Parks Service under Part 11 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act. It is part of a highly successful long-term restoration project, the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project (KWRP) and has been the site of significant hours of volunteer labour by the local bird watching club. It is outrageous to think that these efforts would be undermined for a terminal that is unnecessary, unwanted and of no benefit to the community.

Air quality: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley communities are impacted by dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of coal. An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. Children's lungs don't fully develop until they are about 8 years old - to what are we subjecting the children and youth of the hunter?

Air quality modelling flaws: PWCS's air quality modelling continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.

Particle pollution from rail transport: The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.

Justification for the project: There is no justification for the project. PWCS does not commit to building T4 and only suggests an indicative build date of 2015 with operation maybe in 2017. During a major downturn in global coal demand, Newcastle's approved coal export port capacity of 211Mt seems optimistic. Last year only 141Mt of coal was exported meaning 60Mt or 42 per cent of capacity was uninstalled.

Employment: The 120 Mt facility proposed in the EA identified no additional employment would result from its operation. The revised T4 project of 70Mt million of the RT/PPR is identified as employing 80 additional people. How is this possible? This dubious additional employment is not explained.

Economics: PWCS's claimed economic benefits to the region are based on a type of economic modelling the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. The original economic assessment of the T4 project suggests its annual operating costs will only be between $45-50 million a year. Since that assessment was made, the size of the project has "almost halved", so the amount of money it will "inject" into the economy has presumably declined considerably. For the terminal to achieve its economic potential, a lot more coal has to be dug up and exported. This means that a lot more bush and agricultural land needs to be turned into coal mines. A lot more coal trains need to pass through Newcastle's suburbs. At the site of the proposal, a significant wetland would have to be destroyed. And, of course, the extra coal being burned would contribute to climate change. None of these costs are considered in the economic assessment commissioned by PWCS."

"As a Stockton resident the amount of coal that is stockpiled nearby on kooragang island is having a huge effect on the quality of life here in Stockton. My home is covered in coal dust and even inside my furniture is also covered. This is increasingly getting worse as the stockpiles increase. On westerly winds it is thick and the rate of our familys ventolin use has also increased. I hate the effect all that coal dust is having on my life. No T4 PLEASE!!!"

I object to this project and believe that the community health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts will have far outweighed any short-term benefits it is claimed it will deliver.

These include:

**** Global warming: The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4's will begin operation.
**** The Hunter Estuary supports 112 species of waterbirds and nationally and internationally listed threatened species, including the Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
**** Deep and Swan Ponds: The Project will wipe out 80% of Deep Pond, which supports at least 11 species of migratory recorded and above the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population for three migratory shorebird species, and will develop part of Swan Pond which supports three species in numbers that exceed the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population.
**** Misuse of public conservation lands: Swan Pond is public land, owned and managed by the National Parks Service under Part 11 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act. It is part of a highly successful long-term restoration project, the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project (KWRP) and has been the site of significant hours of volunteer labour by the local bird watching club.
**** Air quality: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley communities are impacted by dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of coal. An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.
**** Air quality modelling flaws: PWCS's air quality modelling continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.
**** Particle pollution from rail transport: The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.
**** Justification for the project: There is no justification for the project. PWCS does not commit to building T4 and only suggests an indicative build date of 2015 with operation maybe in 2017. During a major downturn in global coal demand, Newcastle's approved coal export port capacity of 211Mt seems optimistic. Last year only 141Mt of coal was exported meaning 60Mt or 42 per cent of capacity was uninstalled.
**** Employment: The 120 Mt facility proposed in the EA identified no additional employment would result from its operation. The revised T4 project of 70Mt million of the RT/PPR is identified as employing 80 additional people. How is this possible? This dubious additional employment is not explained.
**** Economics: PWCS's claimed economic benefits to the region are based on a type of economic modelling the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. The original economic assessment of the T4 project suggests its annual operating costs will only be between $45-50 million a year. Since that assessment was made, the size of the project has "almost halved", so the amount of money it will "inject" into the economy has presumably declined considerably. For the terminal to achieve its economic potential, a lot more coal has to be dug up and exported. This means that a lot more bush and agricultural land needs to be turned into coal mines. A lot more coal trains need to pass through Newcastle's suburbs. At the site of the proposal, a significant wetland would have to be destroyed. And, of course, the extra coal being burned would contribute to climate change. None of these costs are considered in the economic assessment commissioned by PWCS. (Read "Terminal 4 project claims don't stack up" By ROD CAMPBELL Oct. 14, 2013 Newcastle Herald)

In late March a pair of tiny birds prepare a scrape in the ground in the Siberian Tundra. The female has about a month to recover from her twelve thousand-kilometre flight and build the nutrients to lay four brown speckled eggs.
Their line has survived at least a million years.
Eggs will be laid in April and on the first day of May they will hatch. The parents gather small insects and feed the brood. The days rapidly lengthen. As May passes they grow from thumbnail size caramel spots of fluff to darker striped feathered chicks.
If wolves or owls or an arctic fox do not find them, and if there is enough food and if a hawk kills neither of the parents they grow quickly. If there is not an unseasonal blizzard or a week of freezing rain they will be fully fledged by the end of June in high summer.
Twenty centimetres down the ground is permanently frozen but on the surface it is alive with grasses, wildflowers, lichens, mosses and millions of insects. By July the chicks have learned to fly. They are making small hops between shallow ponds and they are filling themselves with food twenty hours every day, building up their muscles and storing fat for the journey ahead.
The first day of August the family rises into the air at dawn and begins to fly south. A day later they cross from the Siberian Plateau to the Gobi desert. As the sky darkens they pass the Yin mountains then in the short night the Mu Us desert. The third day they are flying over central china and the fourth day they finally land on the busy coast of Korea. They have lost 30% of their body weight during their epic flight and desperately need food and rest. The wetlands are being bulldozed and filled for expanding cities. The water is polluted and the estuary is busy with boats and fishermen.
They are only halfway.
In the next five days they eat what they can find. A cruel snare that breaks its legs catches one of the parent birds and that evening it is eaten by a clam diggers family. On the sixth day the five birds rise into the air at dawn and continue south. They sweep out over the china sea and gain altitude and speed. As night falls they are passing between the Indonesian Archipelago and Malaysia. At dawn the weakest chick has fallen behind and is captured by a frigate bird.
Day rolls into night, into day, into night. They cross Irian Jaya then the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Down the inland of Australia over Cloncurry and follow the western edge of the Great Divide south without a stop until they meet the sea near Coffs Harbour.
They are near the end of the journey now. Four or five more hours flying and they will find Newcastle Harbour, swing west and follow the Hunter River up to Swan Pond where they finally land.
They have flown for ten days and nights and travelled twelve and a half thousand kilometres. They have now lost half their body weight and are desperately in need of a safe haven with just the right mix of saline and fresh water, few predators, the right vegetation, the insects, fish and crustaceans that they eat and protection from pollution and destruction of their habitat.
The little family of Sharp-Tailed Sandpipers rest and begin to feed.
This is the only place they can survive.

Commissioners we are in a geological age called `The Anthropocene' when mans impact is such that we are changing the surface of the planet. As we do that we are often destroying in the blink of an eye habitats that birds and fish, plants and animals have relied on for millions of years. They can't just move or change their habits. They become extinct.
The Sharp-Tailed Sandpiper only stops once between Siberia and Newcastle because there is only one place to stop and that area of the Korean Coast is being rapidly degraded. There is simply nowhere else that suits their precise needs.
To destroy the Swan Pond and the Deep Pond for a superfluous fourth coal loader in order to inflate the books of a multi-national mining corporation will certainly destroy these tiny miraculous birds. It would be the worst kind of environmental vandalism and stupidity.

I am writing to register my opposition to the T4 proposal.

I am objecting on environmental, social and health grounds. As a resident of Stockton, I feel myself and my family have to live with the consequences of inappropriate development decisions like this one. I also feel that climate change is a major global issue. Developments such as T4 are irresponsible given the current crisis that faces us and the need for long-term sustainable solutions.

In particular:
1. Local impacts
The project will impact on migratory birds and on the local environment in negative ways. This is a public resource and should not be appropriated.

The health impacts of T4 are unacceptable. There is already a high level of health burden felt in this community in particular due to high levels of coal dust. T4 would raise these levels still further.

2. Climate change
The exportation and burning of additional coal will have a major impact on greenhouse emissions. T4 will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. Action to minimise greenhouse gas emissions is already overdue and T4 would be a step in the wrong direction.

3. Need for the proposal and socio-economic impacts
There appears to be no clear need for T4 in terms of demand for coal. Neither will there be significant local benefits in terms of increased employment or the economy. On the contrary, it is time for the Hunter to transition to a sustainable economy.

I hope you will take community concern seriously and not allow this project to proceed.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Sarah Wright

I object to this project and believe that the community health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts will have far outweigh any short term benefits it is claimed it will deliver. These include:

Global warming: The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4's will begin operation.
The Hunter Estuary supports 112 species of waterbirds and nationally and internationally listed threatened species, including the Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Deep and Swan Ponds: The Project will wipe out 80% of Deep Pond, which supports at least 11 species of migratory recorded and above the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population for three migratory shorebird species, and will develop part of Swan Pond which supports three species in numbers that exceed the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population.
Misuse of public conservation lands: Swan Pond is public land, owned and managed by the National Parks Service under Part 11 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act. It is part of a highly successful long-term restoration project, the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project (KWRP) and has been the site of significant hours of volunteer labour by the local bird watching club.
Air quality: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley communities are impacted by dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of coal. An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.
Air quality modelling flaws: PWCS's air quality modelling continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.
Particle pollution from rail transport: The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.
Justification for the project: There is no justification for the project. PWCS does not commit to building T4 and only suggests an indicative build date of 2015 with operation maybe in 2017. During a major downturn in global coal demand, Newcastle's approved coal export port capacity of 211Mt seems optimistic. Last year only 141Mt of coal was exported meaning 60Mt or 42 per cent of capacity was uninstalled.
Employment: The 120 Mt facility proposed in the EA identified no additional employment would result from its operation. The revised T4 project of 70Mt million of the RT/PPR is identified as employing 80 additional people. How is this possible? This dubious additional employment is not explained.
Economics: PWCS's claimed economic benefits to the region are based on a type of economic modelling the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. The original economic assessment of the T4 project suggests its annual operating costs will only be between $45-50 million a year. Since that assessment was made, the size of the project has "almost halved", so the amount of money it will "inject" into the economy has presumably declined considerably. For the terminal to achieve its economic potential, a lot more coal has to be dug up and exported. This means that a lot more bush and agricultural land needs to be turned into coal mines. A lot more coal trains need to pass through Newcastle's suburbs. At the site of the proposal, a significant wetland would have to be destroyed. And, of course, the extra coal being burned would contribute to climate change. None of these costs are considered in the economic assessment commissioned by PWCS. (Read Rod Campbell's economic analysis here.)


Sincerely, Kym-Louise Heyman.

I object to this project and believe that the community health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts will have far outweigh any short term benefits it is claimed it will deliver. These include:

Global warming: The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4's will begin operation.
The Hunter Estuary supports 112 species of waterbirds and nationally and internationally listed threatened species, including the Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Deep and Swan Ponds: The Project will wipe out 80% of Deep Pond, which supports at least 11 species of migratory recorded and above the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population for three migratory shorebird species, and will develop part of Swan Pond which supports three species in numbers that exceed the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population.
Misuse of public conservation lands: Swan Pond is public land, owned and managed by the National Parks Service under Part 11 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act. It is part of a highly successful long-term restoration project, the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project (KWRP) and has been the site of significant hours of volunteer labour by the local bird watching club.
Air quality: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley communities are impacted by dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of coal. An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.
Air quality modelling flaws: PWCS's air quality modelling continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.
Particle pollution from rail transport: The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.
Justification for the project: There is no justification for the project. PWCS does not commit to building T4 and only suggests an indicative build date of 2015 with operation maybe in 2017. During a major downturn in global coal demand, Newcastle's approved coal export port capacity of 211Mt seems optimistic. Last year only 141Mt of coal was exported meaning 60Mt or 42 per cent of capacity was uninstalled.
Employment: The 120 Mt facility proposed in the EA identified no additional employment would result from its operation. The revised T4 project of 70Mt million of the RT/PPR is identified as employing 80 additional people. How is this possible? This dubious additional employment is not explained.
Economics: PWCS's claimed economic benefits to the region are based on a type of economic modelling the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. The original economic assessment of the T4 project suggests its annual operating costs will only be between $45-50 million a year. Since that assessment was made, the size of the project has "almost halved", so the amount of money it will "inject" into the economy has presumably declined considerably. For the terminal to achieve its economic potential, a lot more coal has to be dug up and exported. This means that a lot more bush and agricultural land needs to be turned into coal mines. A lot more coal trains need to pass through Newcastle's suburbs. At the site of the proposal, a significant wetland would have to be destroyed. And, of course, the extra coal being burned would contribute to climate change. None of these costs are considered in the economic assessment commissioned by PWCS. (Read Rod Campbell's economic analysis here.)

I write to offer my support for the action to defer the T4 coal loader. We need to move as quickly as possible away from fossil fuel industries and we need to use money and technology to move to sustainable power systems and to situations where less energy is needed.

This can be done if we have the political will to get it done and a great start will be when the T4 plans are scrapped and investments made in renewable forms of energy and in lifestyles that demand less energy to function.

I object as an individual and on behalf of our group which provides a vehicle to express our collective concerns for over 1100 to this project. We contend that the community health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts will have far outweigh any short term benefits it is claimed it will deliver. The consequence of this project and the damage that consequentially from it flows far beyond the borders of NSW or indeed even Australia. Obviously the closer one gets to this ill conceived project the more obvious the damage.

These include:

Global warming: The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4's will begin operation.
The Hunter Estuary supports 112 species of waterbirds and nationally and internationally listed threatened species, including the Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus), listed as endangered under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
Deep and Swan Ponds: The Project will wipe out 80% of Deep Pond, which supports at least 11 species of migratory recorded and above the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population for three migratory shorebird species, and will develop part of Swan Pond which supports three species in numbers that exceed the threshold of 0.1 per cent of the Australian flyway population.
Misuse of public conservation lands: Swan Pond is public land, owned and managed by the National Parks Service under Part 11 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act. It is part of a highly successful long-term restoration project, the Kooragang Wetland Rehabilitation Project (KWRP) and has been the site of significant hours of volunteer labour by the local bird watching club.
Air quality: Newcastle and the Hunter Valley communities are impacted by dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of coal. An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.
Air quality modelling flaws: PWCS's air quality modelling continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.
Particle pollution from rail transport: The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.
Justification for the project: There is no justification for the project. PWCS does not commit to building T4 and only suggests an indicative build date of 2015 with operation maybe in 2017. During a major downturn in global coal demand, Newcastle's approved coal export port capacity of 211Mt seems optimistic. Last year only 141Mt of coal was exported meaning 60Mt or 42 per cent of capacity was uninstalled.
Employment: The 120 Mt facility proposed in the EA identified no additional employment would result from its operation. The revised T4 project of 70Mt million of the RT/PPR is identified as employing 80 additional people. How is this possible? This dubious additional employment is not explained.
Economics: PWCS's claimed economic benefits to the region are based on a type of economic modelling the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. The original economic assessment of the T4 project suggests its annual operating costs will only be between $45-50 million a year. Since that assessment was made, the size of the project has "almost halved", so the amount of money it will "inject" into the economy has presumably declined considerably. For the terminal to achieve its economic potential, a lot more coal has to be dug up and exported. This means that a lot more bush and agricultural land needs to be turned into coal mines. A lot more coal trains need to pass through Newcastle's suburbs. At the site of the proposal, a significant wetland would have to be destroyed. And, of course, the extra coal being burned would contribute to climate change. None of these costs are considered in the economic assessment commissioned by PWCS.

I object to the expansion of the newcastle coal export port for many reasons.
The proposed site will increase airborne dust pollution and shorten people's lives with in the area I live , and affect people I know.
When utilised this coal will result in emissions including toxic fine particulates that will greatly affect the lives of many people I do not know. The Co2 emissions will contribute to sea level rise, and the increased occurrence of extreme weather events.
The obscene levels of growth of the coal industry in recent years has already destroyed communities, along vast tracks of farming land and forest in the upper hunter and many parts of NSW. These areas are used by diverse ,sustainable , intergenerational industries , such those which serve the dairy, wine, tourism, and thoroughbred commercial interests. The coming decades we already know will be defined by the dining industry, and not the mining industry. We need to preserve our land,our water, and our skilled people. As a community we have given already too much to the coal industry, the deal is now over.

I oppose the PWCS application for the T4 Preferred Project.

I have lived in the Hunter Valley for 9 years and during that time I've discovered a lot about the effects of coal mining on people and their communities, the effects on the rivers in the valley and the effect on agriculture. The effects are all adverse.

I've met many people whose livelihood through farming is either gone or threatened. I've read of children in particular suffering from asthma due to air pollution exacerbated by coal dust. The publicity surrounding Dr Tuan Au's attempts to get more studies done on effects on people's health from coal mining is well documented.

Since monitoring of air quality has commenced there's records of the number of times that pollution has exceeded national standards and there are many of them.

A particular part of the valley that I've come to know and explore is the Hunter River estuary. It is remarkable that its natural environment has survived to the extent it has given the huge changes to the esturary through coal port development. Now we're at a tipping point. The threatened species of migratory birds are declining because of habitat loss. I've been shown some of these birds by bird watcher friends and have explored Swan Pond. As Deep Pond is within the coal loader area it's not easy to see, but as it would be destroyed with the T4 development there would be less and less wetland area to support the migratory birds. That these birds are extraordinary there is no doubt. They obviously don't mix well with coal loaders. It's definately time to be on the side of the threatened species and maintain whatever is left of our biodiversity.

That coal mining has brought development and jobs to the area is in no doubt. But now that the adverse and cumulative effects of coal mining and its transport and burning are known the alleged advantages of that development must be weighed up against the permanent damage it does to people, communities, health, rivers, biodiversity, agriculture.

T4 should not go ahead. Coal mining expansion is no longer acceptable and PWCS has acknowledged that there won't be the predicted increase in coal export due to falling prices and demand. It is clear that the earth is warming and that the warming is due to carbon emissions. It is unacceptable to expand the Hunter's coal mining activities now that this is known.

I object to this project on many grounds, including basic questions of community health, immediate and long term environmental impacts, and immediate and long term socioeconomic impacts, all of which make a compelling case for this proposal not to proceed.

Above all else, these are historic times when humanity can intervene in public policy, and make the necessary choices to secure the future capacity of our planet to sustain human life. We cannot defer this any longer.

The burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year will add 174.2Mt of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is equal to 30% of Australia's total annual GHG emissions. The International Energy Agency predicts that to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius, global coal demand must peak in 2016, at least a year before PWCS indicates T4's will begin operation.

A sustainable future must be one that phases out the use of coal burning technologies in favour of alternatives that do not emit CO2. To achieve this requires action that scales down, in a planned way, the extraction and sale of coal for this purpose.

More immediately, as a resident of Mayfield in view of existing large piles of coal, and with a roof full of accumulated coal dust, and a 9 year old sone with episodic asthma, I am deeply concerned at the immediate and longer term health impacts of particulates from the transportation and storage of coal.

An additional 70Mt of coal exported will mean about an additional 7000 trips of 80 wagon trains between the Hunter mines and the port and back again per year, the capacity to export coal from an additional 8 to 10 mega mines and four new 1.5km coal stockpiles will substantially add to PM10 emissions in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.

Community groups have highlighted serious flaws in PWCS's air quality modelling, which continues to use 2010 as a base year. NSW Health has suggested that PWCS should have included "a justification for assuming the PM10 levels in 2010 would be a realistic baseline for modelling future particulate levels or alternatively use, as a baseline, average levels over a longer period of time". This recommendation is ignored in the PPR.

The PPR does not address air quality issues from rail transport returning to the Upper Hunter Valley. PWCS continues to focus on air quality impacts within 20m of the rail corridor, but there are almost 30,000 people living within 500m of the rail corridor and 23,000 students attend 16 schools in that vicinity. The submission to the EA by NSW Health noted that the contribution of coal dust from coal trains beyond 20m from the rail corridor needs to be carefully considered, but this recommendation is ignored.

Finally, in my view there is no justification for this project. As is often the case, the claimed "economic benefits" for the region are exaggerated, to justify the super profits that come from the extraction and sale of finite natural resources that belong to the whole community, and about which the whole community ought to have decision making power.

I object to this project and believe that the community health, environmental and socioeconomic impacts will have far outweigh any short term benefits it is claimed it will deliver. My main concerns are as follows:

1. Swan Pond is public land owned and managed by the National Parks Association. There can be no justification for public land to be given to a private company for exploitation.

2. The additional dust from the mining, transport and stockpiling of the coal will substantially affect the air quality and therefore the health of the citizens of Newcastle and the Hunter Valley. This means that in the future the State and Federal governments will have to allocate more money in the health budget for the treatment of people with lung diseases.

3. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has said that the type of economic modelling used by PWCS is "biased" and the Productivity Commission says is regularly "abused", usually to overstate the economic importance of specific projects. This would suggest that the justification for this project is severely flawed and therefore the project should not be allowed to happen.

4.Most importantly of all is the impact the burning of an additional 70Mt of coal a year and the impact it will have on global warming. It is time that these types of projects are refused outright and renewable energy projects given precedence if we are to escape the worst outcomes of climate change

Yours sincerely
Pamela Reeves