Green group slams Clive Palmer’s Galilee mine bid

CLIVE Palmer-controlled company has been condemned by a green group after it applied to build a mega coal mine in the Galilee Basin.

GALILEE COAL: Businessman Clive Palmer.

CLIVE Palmer-controlled company, Waratah Coal, has been condemned by a green group after it applied for a mining lease and environmental authority to build a mega coal mine in the Galilee Basin.

The Guardian has reported the Galilee Coal project - formerly known as China First - would be four times the size of Adani's Carmichael mine.

The Galilee Coal project gained federal environmental approval in late 2013, and a notification that Waratah Coal had renewed its 2011 application for a mining lease and environmental authority was issued by Queensland's coal assessment hub on October 4.

The proposed mine - about 100km from Adani's Carmichael mine - would include two open-cut pits, four underground mines and a 453km railway linking the project to the Abbot Point coal terminal.

Lock the Gate Alliance said if it went ahead, the Galilee Coal Project would destroy grazing land and the Bimblebox Nature refuge, a habitat in the Eastern Desert uplands and at the centre of the proposal.

GALILEE COAL: Green group Lock the Gate Alliance has slammed the proposal. Picture: Lock the Gate Alliance

Local landowner and Nature Refuge co-owner Paola Cassoni said she would consider all options now the ML and EA had been notified.

"We have submitted to the Environmental Impact Statement and voiced our concerns throughout the EIS process," she said.

"But by making an objection to the land court Waratah's assertions about the impacts of the mine can finally be put to the test.

"We have been in drought out here for more than three years. Our groundwater is all we have to depend on. We have no choice but to use all options open to us to protect this important pocket of country."

Lock the Gate Queensland spokeswoman Ellie Smith said graziers were calling on the government to amend legislation to confirm "that the impacts of mining on groundwater will be properly considered at all stages of the assessment and approvals process".

"It seems ludicrous that impacts on groundwater can suddenly be taken out of consideration midway through the assessment process for the Galilee Coal project," Ms Smith said.

The public has until December 2 to comment on the proposed Galilee Coal project.

Originally published as Green group slams Clive Palmer’s Galilee mine bid