AN AWARD-winning author and researcher has warned that the cultural and physical landscape of Bacchus Marsh’s hinterland could be destroyed if an open-cut brown coal mine goes ahead.
Sharyn Munro spoke at the Bacchus Marsh supper rooms last week about her recent book Rich Land, Wasteland: How Coal is Killing Australia.
She said she felt compelled to investigate the effects increased coal mining could have on ordinary Australians.
Ms Munro says she spent 2010 travelling across the country to the “coalface”, looking at towns and districts and speaking to people directly affected by the mining industry.
She was concerned poorer-quality brown coal, previously not considered by mining companies, was now being sought by bigger miners with the technology to dry it out. “Everyone thought coal mining was just restricted to the Latrobe [Valley], but now theoretically these companies can dry coal and export to India and China.
“As far as carbon emissions go, this will merely lower pollution levels down to black coal levels and it will not address climate change.
“Bacchus Marsh is just so agriculturally rich, people for generations have been growing produce and this all becomes irrelevant when a company walks in and overrides that.”
She said she had spoken to many people close to mines who had suffered health effects from plumes of nitrous oxide, which occurred after large layers of basalt, which exists in Bacchus Marsh, were blasted through.
Moorabool Environment Group secretary Deb Porter said she was concerned after hearing
Ms Munro’s accounts of farmers near mines going broke.
Mantle Mining, which has been exploring for brown coal around Parwan and Bacchus Marsh over the past year, this month announced to the Australian Stock Exchange that its drilling program had been completed, with coal thickness in the last of its 12 holes exceeding expectations by 27per cent.
Mantle is drafting a joint venture agreement with larger mining company Exergen to develop the deposit utilising Exergen’s patented continuous hydrothermal dewatering technology.
A spokesman for Energy and Resources Minister Michael O’Brien said all mineral exploration in Victoria was covered by stringent regulations. The government would continue to apply these safeguards on a “non-discriminatory basis”.
