Thursday, 26 May 2022

Hazelwood mine rehabilitation

Dr READ (Brunswick) (17:16): (6392) My adjournment this evening is to the Minister for Planning. The action I seek is that the minister ensure that the scope of the environment effects statement (EES) for the rehabilitation of the Hazelwood mine will include consideration of the rehabilitation of the other mines currently operating in the Latrobe Valley and the environmental needs for water.

There are currently three extremely large open-cut coalmines in the area, Hazelwood, Yallourn and Loy Yang. The impact of these giant mine pits is so significant that they have altered the geology of the area. These mines are unstable and need to be constantly managed to stop the walls collapsing. Once these mines stop operating they need to be rehabilitated, and operators say that some level of water is going to be required in the pits to stop major mine wall collapse. However, there are some really important questions to do with the rehabilitation of the mines and the water use that remain unanswered: where will the 638 billion litres required to fill Hazelwood come from, and how much will the mine owners pay for it?

Water is already scarce in the area. The Latrobe River system and the downstream Gippsland Lakes are already suffering from overextraction of water for mining and agriculture and from the continuing long-term decline in rainfall in Victoria. So it is vital that the EES for Hazelwood, the first of the mines being rehabilitated, looks at the full picture. Engie, Hazelwood’s multinational owner, probably wants to fill the pit with fresh water and walk away. This is the easiest and cheapest option for them. But this would take an untenable amount of water out of the surrounding rivers, and the evaporation lost from this giant artificial lake would be huge. We simply do not have that much water available. This approach would also set an expectation for the other mines, and we certainly do not have enough water to fill all three. That is why the EES must consider all the options—for example, alternative landforms or having the mining companies purchase manufactured water.

Of course the planning for mine closure and rehabilitation should have been done decades ago. It also should have been done in the last few years as part of the recent Latrobe Valley Regional Rehabilitation Strategy. But it was not done at either of these times, and now things have got to the pointy to end with this Hazelwood EES about to start. The government cannot put this off any longer, so I look forward to the scope of Hazelwood’s EES including the consideration of Gippsland’s environmental water needs and what is to happen to the other two mines.