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Maggie May behind Angus Place Tip
Mine Watch

Lithgow is a mining area, and coal mining has a significant impact on human health and the local environment.

LEG aims to keep a close watch on:

  • Development Applications for new mine proposals
  • Modifications and extensions to existing mining operations
  • Environmental performance of POEO Licenced mines
  • Rehabilitation of operational and abandoned mines
  • Water quality monitoring downstream of mines
  • Participation on various Community Consultative Committees
  • Networking with other local and regional environment groups
  • Health and public safety impacts on air quality, drinking water, amenity, landscapes
  • On-ground monitoring of mine subsidence damage to cliffs, pagodas, headwater stream, flora, fauna and swamp communities

There are three main mining methods used locally -
Bord & Pillar, Open-cut and Long Wall.
These are described here.

Local Operational Mines

The operational mines in the Lithgow Region produce over 16 million tonnes of coal each year. The Mines are shown on this map.

The mines, the company that owns them, the method and volume of extraction, are:

  • Airly Mine: Centennial - Bord & Pillar - 1.8 MTPA
  • Angus Place Colliery: Centennial - longwall - 2.5 MTPA
  • Baal Bone Colliery: Xstrata - longwall - 1.7 MTPA
  • Charbon Colliery: Centennial - Bord & Pillar and open cut - 1.2 MTPA
  • Clarence Colliery: Centennial - Bord & Pillar - 2.5 MTPA
  • Cullen Valley Mine: Coalpac P/L - open cut - 1 MTPA
  • Invincible Colliery: Coalpac P/L - open cut - 1.2 MTPA
  • Ivanhoe North: Centennial - open cut - 300,000 MTPA
  • Lambert's Gully Mine: Centennial - open cut - 400,000 MTPA
  • Pine Dale Mine: Enhance Place P/L - open cut - 350,000 MTPA
  • Springvale Colliery: Centennial - longwall - 3.5 MTPA
[MTPA - million tonnes per year.]

Environmental Impacts of Mining

Water Pollution

Salts; Heavy metals; Turbidity; Acidity/Alkalinity; Dissolved Oxygen; Thermal pollution; oil & grease; Solcenic water-soluble hydraulic oils (see Streamwatch)

Water over-Extraction

Swamp & Stream Damage (see Swampwatch)

Alteration of habitat following subsidence due to longwall mining is listed as a Key Threatening Process under the Threatened Species Conservation Act, 1995.

Alteration to the natural flow of rivers, streams, their floodplains and wetlands is listed as a KEY THREATENING PROCESS in Schedule 3 of the Threatened Species Conservation Act, 1995.

Cliff & Pagoda Damage - (click the image to get a larger version)

Baal Bane - Site 110
Site 110 - Baal Bane 		Angus Place subsidence
Angus Place subsidence 		Angus Place Site 45 near Lambs Ck
Angus Place
Site 45 near Lambs Ck 		Angus Place Site 97
Angus Place
Site 97 behind the tip


Visual Impacts

Approval of Invincible Colliery Open-cut Mine on 7th September 2006 was based on CoalPac Pty Ltd’s claim that “the open cut operations proposed would not be visible from the Castlereagh Highway due to the intervening topography and existing vegetation coverage”
(Refer: 05_0065_proponents_response_to_submissions page 4, para 2, NSW Planning Website).

The steep open-cuts into the escarpment of Ben Bullen State Forest are in fact highly visible along a 2 km section of the Castlereagh Hwy, from the top of the Great Dividing Range west to Cullen Bullen township.

The same company operates Cullen Valley Mine. Its ugly open-cuts into a mountain are highly visible from the Portland–Cullen Bullen Road and from the Mudgee Railway Line.

 Invincible Open-cut mine from the Castlereagh Hwy
Invincible Open-cut mine from the Castlereagh Hwy (March 2010)
(click the image to get a larger version)
Invincible Open-cut mine from the Castlereagh Hwy
Cullen Valley Mine
Cullen Valley Mine
(click the image to get
a larger version) 		Invincible at Mt Piper

Tourism Impacts

Hassans Walls Lookout Hassans Walls Lookout

Hassans Walls Lookout - Lithgow’s premier tourism attraction.

A Lookout and picnic shelter are now closed to the public due to destabilised cliffs and dangerous surface cracks caused by total extraction of pillars by Lithgow Valley Colliery beneath cliff lines in the 1960’s.

Major cracking has occurred within the Reserve, with open crevasses up to half a metre wide.


Hassans Walls Lookout Hassans Walls Lookout

Five cliff falls have occurred in Hassans Walls Reserve.

The first two prior to 1969, two more around 1970-71, and the most recent in August 2007.

This demonstrates that cliffs will continue to fall long after the mining companies have gone.

(click the image to get a larger version)

Hassans Walls Hassans Walls Landslip - Lithgow Mercury Hassans Walls




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