Rocky Hill Coal Mine

I OBJECT TO THIS PROJECT

I wholeheartedly object.

I oppose the Rocky Hill Coal Mine.

NSW already has a large number of coal mines. It's possible to have too much of a good thing (not that I think coal mining is still a good thing). More coal mines will make existing coal mines even less profitable than they are now. This is an industry in structural decline and the government should not be encouraging the delusion that all is still business-as-usual. It's not.

The proposed mine is too close to the community of Gloucester. Coal mining is a seriously polluting industry - polluting air and water. There are risks to residents' health and downstream water recipients if the mine goes ahead.

As the NSW EDO has recently made clear, all planning decisions in NSW must now include serious consideration of the carbon emissions implications of the development.

The NSW government must show us that it understands, accepts and will act on the new reality arising from the UN Paris climate talks last December.

Do you realise that to have a 66% chance of keeping global warming to +2C, all nations and states must cut carbon emissions by 40% by 2018, 70% by 2024 and 90% by 2030, to be completely emissions-free by 2032?

Translating this for NSW: the carbon budget for NSW is 2.52 bn tonnes of carbon. This means cutting 1bn tonnes of carbon in the next 2 years, another 756 mn tonnes of carbon by 2024 and a further 500 mn tonnes of carbon by 2030.

It is impossible for NSW to come anywhere near meeting its duty of care, governance and moral responsibilities for combating climate change by opening new coal mines.

The response is clear - no new coal mines for NSW - not the Rocky Hill mine, not the Watermark mine, none, ever, anymore.

The proposed mine is way too close to residential areas.
The proposed pits are only 900m from the Forbesdale residential estate, and barely 3km from Gloucester township. The impacts from noise and air pollution, blasting, loss of amenity and lifestyle on surrounding residents are simply unacceptable, and in no way justified by the dubious economic arguments put forward by mine proponents.
Risk of water contamination is high.
The proposed mine is on the Avon River floodplain and in the catchment area of the Manning River, which supplies drinking water to over 80,000 people. The Avon River has flooded five times in four years, with two floods occurring in 2013. There is definite potential for contamination of the water in the catchment.
The health impacts are far too great.
Gloucester's hospital, its schools, and almost all of its residents are within 5km from the proposed coal pits. Particulate pollution from open-cut mining is known to lead to reduced respiratory health and increased death rates in surrounding communities. It is completely unfair and unjustified to expose the population of Gloucester to these health impacts.
The mine threatens Gloucester's $50 million tourism industry.
Gloucester is a unique and beautiful town on the edge of the Barrington wilderness, and it has a thriving nature-based tourism industry. Open-cut coal mining is completely incompatible with this important local industry, which must be protected.
So-called 'commitments' to reduce mining impacts are not trusted.
The community has no reason to trust either commitments from the mining company made during its application, nor conditions imposed by the Planning Department if approval is given. We have seen elsewhere in Gloucester and the Hunter Valley that these conditions can be changed later, and usually are. Conditions regarding mine rehabilitation, night-time work hours, noise, blasting and dust, and even the footprint of the mine, are untrusted. It is known, for example, that there are plans for a 'Stage 2' of the coal mine. The only acceptable outcome for the Rocky Hill application is to reject it outright.

I am writing to state my absolute opposition to this project and am appalled that it is even being considered.
There is overwhelming evidence supporting the harm to human health and environmental damage from mining, transport and burning of coal. As a Newcastle GP, I am very aware of the impacts of air pollution and coal dust, and this project will only add to this potential disease burden.
Global climate change is not a frightening prospect - it is real. Australia must show leadership in not allowing new coal mines and moving to an energy industry based on renewables.
Please read the evidence and make a decision based on health and environmental protection, not an economic one.
Yours Sincerely
Dr Simon Morgan

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, Sydney 2001
Attention Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam

I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
Perhaps bring more employment to this now dieing town. As a business owner i would like think it will bring a few more younger people here.

I have/have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years.

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will: enhance job chances and keep the town alive.

I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:


I have/have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
It will bring more employment to the town. It will hopefully bring young families to town. We need to help a town that has come to a standstill going nowhere fast.
Tourism is not enough to keep this town alive.
If we don't have employment fast this town of GLOUCESTER WILL DIE.

I have/have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
Provide much needed employment in the Gloucester district as well as guaranteeing the retension of local infrastructure

I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
- Gloucester, as a community, is lacking industry and this project will bring much needed industry, and jobs to town.
- I see GRL to be a good corporate citizen, with best practices in mining.
- The welfare of the community also seem to be important to the company and Gloucester and the region will positively benefit.
- Through our personal experience we understand mining & agriculture can work harmoniously together.
- I support the project 100%.

I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
create much needed jobs, keep local young people in the community.

I have/have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
As local residents I am 100% for the Rocky Hill Coal Project to go ahead. Gloucester needs this positive industry - creating flowon economic benefits to the town, region and State.
The company is already proving it is a good corporate citizen, participating in the local community, and most of all listening, and involving the community in decisions relating to the project.
Locals need this project to go ahead. It can be done to best practice, and will be.

I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:


I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
It will create more much needed jobs for Gloucester & maintain infrastructure.

I have/have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Water is our most essential asset, without water crops will not grow, nor livestock survive, nor even residents be able to meet their daily needs. As an important catchment area for the Manning River and on the Avon floodplain(which has flooded five times in four years) the potential for a disastrous downstream calamity is not a possibility but an extreme likelihood, causing untold and potentially expensive clean-up outcomes(and on past records, unlikely to be met by the companies involved). How much water does this mine intend to use and where will it come from? What is the effect on the water-table and availability of water to local agricultural concerns? Once used by the coal mine operation this water becomes toxic waste left in tailings dam/s, with the potential to break and send a toxiferous soup careening down the river systems. It seems no mining company has plans for restoration of water quality used in mining operations or for addressing the decontamination of tailings dams.

Particulate pollution, is also of great concern, and not just for the local residents, these particulates invariably include poisonous and carcinogenic contaminants that severely degrade various qualities of the environment, whether of air, soil or water, all are defiled, spreading perniciously throughout the rivers and landscape, seriously damaging the viability of any local agricultural businesses. And this is where there is a major difference as well, current agricultural and National Park interests are sustainable for generations in providing employment and good environment, mining is only for a limited timeframe with a history of destroying once productive lands.

The impact on residents of this mine proposal would be calamitous, from a place of relative quietude to the unremitting rumble of coal trucks(day and night) and intermittent explosions/explosive reverberations. From the scent of gums filling the breeze to the awful awareness that every breath will now contain some form of particulate material from the mine, carcinogenic or otherwise. A dust that settles across the town, that settles throughout the house, and over the clothes that hang on the washing line, that are part of the children's playgrounds and sporting fields, that is unavoidably part of every daily breath of every local resident. All for a few years mining that threatens lives of local inhabitants for generations to come.

This area has a rich Indigenous history, was one of the first areas entered by British and European "settlers", and is currently a World Heritage listed National Park area, bringing in important tourist dollars to the area and providing an essential refuge from the hustle and bustle of the city. Gloucester is an important hub for these activities, how welcoming for these visitors to be conspicuously suffocated by a mine's daily toxic spume, and its windborne encroachment into World Heritage areas, through sound and pestilential matter.

This mine should not go ahead, its environmental legacy on a vibrant agricultural and tourist economy would be disastrous for the longer term benefits to the community that these currently and ongoing economies provide. The mine will seriously impact water systems, both immediate and beyond, to the detriment and additional costs of the community that have repercussions beyond the life span of the mine. The health costs that will reverberate throughout the community as a result of mining operations, and the community's capacity to meet these needs once the mine is finished, outweigh any miniscule economic benefits the mine will provide over its working life. Looked at in total, this coal mine is an uneconomic disaster for the people of Gloucester, the people who will be left to pick up so many broken pieces in their lives, from water quality, to personal health, and environmental and employment degradation once the mines have closed.

I object most strongly to the Rocky Hill Coal Project.

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
Create more jobs and maintain infrastructure.

I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:


I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
Good for town.

I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely

Planning Services
Department of Planning and Environment
GPO Box 39, SYDNEY 2001
Attention: Director - Resources and Energy

Project Name: Rocky Hill Coal Project
Project No.: SSD 5156

Dear Sir/Madam
I support the Rocky Hill Coal Project going ahead because it will:
more jobs

I have not made any reportable political donations in the past two years

Yours sincerely