There’s more to soil than just dirt in these parts
THE pregnant racehorses lazily stretching their long limbs in the weak NSW morning sun on the Hunter River’s fertile flats.
THE pregnant racehorses lazily stretching their long limbs in the weak NSW morning sun on the Hunter River’s fertile flats near Denman look like a scene from a glossy tourist brochure.
But add a soundtrack to the idyllic appearance of the thoroughbred horse studs that line the Golden Highway at Jerry’s Plains and it quickly becomes apparent why Scone equine vet Cameron Collins, president of the Hunter Thoroughbreds Breeders Association, is spending so much time pouring over planning submissions and mining proposals.
Just 6km over the hills from the 3500-groomed hectares of the internationally renowned Coolmore Stud is the Drayton coalmine owned by the giant Anglo-American company.
Its mining rattles, explosions and other noise can be heard as a dull background rumble on the paddocks where the foals that may become tomorrow’s Danehill or Fastnet Rock gambol.
But if a five-year proposal to build a new Drayton South mine on Coolmore’s doorstep gets final approval in the next two months, it will bring a deep operating coal pit and its overburden slag heaps to within 700m of the heart of Australia’s valuable horse breeding industry.
Dr Collins fears approval of the $370 million mine will sound the death knell for the $2 billion Hunter Valley horse industry and its 1000 workers and dependent businesses, as well as for the 75 per cent of Australian racehorses who start their days here.
After one knockback, a revised submission, which reduces the footprint of the proposed mine by 15 per cent, removes a pit that was to be dug closest to the studs and shrinks its working life from 27 to 20 years, will be the subject of a new and final Planning Assessment Commission hearing in two weeks time.
Two other major new open cut coalmines are also in final planning approval negotiations: Rio Tinto’s Coal and Allied for its Warkworth Mine expansion near little Bulga village, and a mine planned for Camberwell by Chinese-owned Yancoal-Ashton Mining.
NSW Minerals Council chief executive Steve Galilee says all three projects are critical at a time when coal prices have fallen to below $70 a tonne from highs of $120 two years ago. More than 2000 workers in the $12 billion Hunter coal industry have been laid off since 2012, vacant houses are for rent at falling rates, and shops and businesses in solid mining towns are closing or complaining of dwindling custom.
But Wendy Bowman, 82, won’t be swayed by mining’s facts and figures.
Instead the gritty cattle farmer, who is refusing to sell her 200ha farm at Camberwell to neighbouring Ashton Mining, is thinking about water quality, the next 200 years and the wineries and winemakers downstream around prized Pokolbin who rely on the creek water to grow their precious grapes.
“They say I have most of the coal under here and I’m not surprised; that is why this is such good land and soil to farm,” Mrs Bowman said yesterday.
“They’re offering plenty of money and putting the pressure on but I told them to stick it up their jumper; this is about trying to look after all those people downstream who rely on this creek for their water.’’