ALMOST 200 privately owned bores could be affected by water aquifer drawdowns, according to an evaluation report by Queensland coordinator-general Barry Broe on the environmental impact of the New Acland Mine Stage 3 Project.
Mr Broe handed down his report in mid-December, stating that 198 privately owned bores were likely to or possibly would be affected by such drawdowns caused by mining activity.
The figure has alarmed local landholders, including Oakey Coal Action Alliance spokeswoman Nicki Laws whose beef property is 20 kilometres south-east of Acland.
"The water impacts are far worse than we feared ... it's ludicrous to think coal mining companies will make good for water and do it urgently," she said.
"We really think it's going to impact far more farms than they are admitting to now."
Five aquifers are located beneath the site: Quaternary Alluvial, Tertiary Basalt, Walloon Coal Measures, Marburg Sandstone and Helidon Sandstone.
A maximum drawdown of 47 metres from the Walloon Coal Measures is expected to occur.
It was estimated that drawdowns from this aquifer could cover an area 21 kilometres in diameter.
Deputy Premier and State Development, Infrastructure and Planning Minister Jeff Seeney dismissed landholders' concerns, saying he was confident Mr Broe had properly assessed and appropriately conditioned the potential impacts on groundwater.
"The coordinator-general set 26 conditions to manage, minimise, and make good on the project's potential groundwater impacts," he said.
"Some of these conditions include establishing 37 aquifer monitoring points across the mine site to monitor groundwater levels and water quality throughout the project.
"The proponent must enter into make-good agreements with potentially affected groundwater users and these agreements must be in place at least three years before any impact is predicted to occur."
AgForce general president Grant Maudsley said the year ahead would test the government's new water regime for mining.
Mr Maudsley said legislative amendments to apply a make-good obligation on all future mineral resource developments had to be fair and effective for landholders.
"This is achieved by a combination of comprehensive pre-development baselines on all water bores; more robust monitoring programs and accurate assessment of potential and actual impacts on water bores to establish legal liability; fair negotiations and entering into acceptable make-good agreements with affected landholders; and clear plans for dealing with cumulative and post-activity impacts over the long term," he said.
"AgForce is strongly of the view all producers near resource developments need confidence that there will be a proactive protection of their access to water for livestock and domestic uses as well as other business purposes."
Acland's strategic cropping status
THE disturbance footprint of the New Acland Coal Mine will be 1466 hectares, 1361ha of which is classified as strategic cropping land.
Mr Seeney confirmed that Stage 3 would be subject to the Regional Planning Interests Act 2014.
"The trigger map and protections afforded to strategic cropping land under the previous Strategic Cropping Land Act 2011 were transferred to the Regional Planning Interests Act 2014 which was enacted in June 2014," he said.
That has failed to allay Mrs Laws' fears. She labelled legislative decisions in 2014 as "the systematic stripping of communities and farmers rights to object to mines" and said she was disappointed by the "unfettered access to water that mining companies are allowed".
"One of the biggest concerns is that Acland is strategic cropping land and that makes it an uncommon mine in Queensland," she said. "It's a travesty in a world where we are being told we have to feed 9 billion people very soon and likely world food shortages that we are allowing mining on our good farming land."
Voters lose trust in approval process
WHEN Queensland Country Life spoke to Mrs Laws on Tuesday, the day the state election date was announced, she said many landholders had completely lost trust in the major political parties and their broken promises.
“I think many of our members are really disillusioned with the LNP and are looking at the other parties – anyone that we can trust,” she said.
“There’s no more obvious of an example than Acland.
“We really think that this decision and the silence that surrounded it is deafening.”
The New Acland Coal Mine Stage 3 Project is being assessed by the federal Department of the Environment, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
A spokesperson for federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt said the assessment process took 30 business days and a final decision by the Environment Department was due in early February 2015.
If approval is granted, New Acland Coal, a subsidiary of the New Hope Corporation, will be required to submit a Regional Interests Development Application, a new step in the approval process.
The company will also need to seek state government approval for a mining lease under the Mineral Resources Act 1989 and an Environmental Authority under the Environmental Protection Act 1994.