Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action takes aim at Whitehaven Coal’s Narrabri coal project
The mining major will defend a fresh legal challenge to its $440m proposed expansion of its Narrabri mine in NSW.
Whitehaven Coal is facing a legal challenge to its proposed $440m Narrabri mine expansion in north west of NSW by a climate group being represented by the Environmental Defenders Office.
The Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action lawsuit is the latest in a string of similar disputes between the mining company and the EDO, a pro-bono law firm. The case has been filed in the Land and Environment Court.
Whitehaven says it would defend itself against the challenge, which argues the state’s Independent Planning Commission erred in its approval of the expansion.
The mine expansion was approved by NSW regulators in April, allowing the company to extract coal at a rate of up to 11 million tonnes of run-of-mine coal a year until 2031.
The decision gave Whitehaven clearance to extend the mine site up to 10km south of its existing 500m-wide coal seam project.
But the IPC imposed 152 conditions on the project including new measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions ahead of approval.
The approval was immediately slammed by critics concerned the mine extension was at odds with climate change goals, with the Australia Institute branding it “reckless and dangerous” given the nation’s need to cut pollution.
The coal miner has been operating Narrabri since 2012 where it employs 500 people and had held a licence to produce 11m tonnes a year of coal until 2031.
The EDO proceedings seek to “invalidate the consent on climate change-related grounds”, Whitehaven said in a note to investors on Tuesday.
The Bushfire Survivors for Climate Change case argues the IPC decision was “unreasonable, irrational and illogical and not in the public interest” in approving the expansion.
“In this court action, Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action will argue that in the face of indisputable evidence on the climate impacts, no reasonable person could conclude that this mine was in the public interest,” the group said.
Whitehaven said the IPC had conducted a “comprehensive assessment and evaluation process” of the project, which included consideration of 1775 submissions from relevant stakeholders.
“Roughly one-third of these submissions addressed the issue of climate change,” it said. “The IPC’s reasons for finding that the … extension project should be approved subject to stringent conditions of consent included that (greenhouse gas) emissions for the project have been adequately estimated and are permissible in context of the current climate change policy framework.”
The new expansion extends the life of the mine until 2044 and allows an extra 82m tonnes of thermal coal to be extracted after the IPC approved its plan.
The NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment had spent more than a year reviewing the project and gave the green light in January 2022 for the scheme which will extract coal to the south of the existing mine.
Elaine Johnson, the EDO’s director of legal strategy, said the case against Whitehaven was “a line in the sand”.
“The IPC has a duty to make legally reasonable and justifiable decisions. Our client says that it cannot be reasonable, rational, logical or in the public interest to approve a mine which will be a major new source of climate pollution in 2022,” she said. “The IPC had before it indisputable scientific evidence on the impact emissions from this mine extension would have on our climate. This mine produces not just thermal coal, but significant amounts of fugitive methane as well.”
The EDO has supported a legal challenge to Whitehaven’s Maules Creek coal mine brought by the South East Forest Alliance in 2020 but dropped the case last year after the coal miner agreed to environmental offsets.
Approval for that mine extension had been given in 2013 with strict conditions requiring Whitehaven to protect 5532ha for the clearing of box gum grassy woodland in the Leard Forest. The EDO, however, alleged that this had not happened.
Shares in Whitehaven closed up 0.6 per cent at $4.83.
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