31 January 2025
The Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales (NCC), the state's leading environmental organisation, is calling on the State government to reject Centennial Coal's proposal to dump millions of litres of toxic wastewater into Sydney's drinking water catchment.
The proposal was submitted to the Department of Planning earlier this month, outlining the company's plans to discharge up to 42 ML of wastewater every day into Thompsons Creek Reservoir. Thompsons Creek Reservoir is a popular fishing spot and outflows through the Blue Mountains World Heritage area and into Warragamba Dam.
Centennial mining operations are adjacent to the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area, a place with 80 rare and threatened species and 16 threatened ecological communities. Intensive mining methods have destroyed aquifers, resulting in drying out of endangered upland peat swamps.
"Centennial's water issue is a crisis of their own making, resulting from damaging aquifers in their underground mining operations. Now they want to pollute World Heritage streams and force the people of Greater Sydney to drink the mess," said NCC Senior Climate Campaigner Jacqui Mills.
"The water that Centennial wants to offload is laced with heavy metals and brine.
"Sydneysiders are lucky to drink some of the most pristine water in the world, thanks to the beautiful forests of the Blue Mountains World Heritage area that filter our water.
"We can't let desperate mining companies like Centennial use our drinking water as a dumping ground.
"We know this application is the tip of the iceberg, and the enormity of this environmental disaster will slowly be revealed as Centennial plans to discharge polluted water from its currently flooded mine and disrupts more groundwater resources with continued mining."
"Centennial's destructive mining has damaged groundwater flows under the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area bordering the Blue Mountains World Heritage area, resulting in massive water inflows into underground mines.
"They are manufacturing a crisis moment with excess water not able to be sent to the Mount Piper power station for use in cooling towers whilst the station is offline for periods this year.
"The real issue here is that Centennial Coal has not adopted technology to clean the wastewater of heavy metals and salt toxic to aquatic life in this sensitive area.
"Instead, they intend to dilute dirty water with treated water prior to discharge to the dam. Experts have warned this approach would exacerbate pollution load. It's simply not good enough.
"The Independent Planning Commission must refuse permission, and the NSW Environment Protection Agency must do what it takes to make Centennial clean up its act.
"We urgently need a public inquiry into the damaging mine wastewater from Centennial's underground coal mines in the Gardens of Stone region."
