Time for truth about Drayton South..By Rob Young

Drayton South overview. Courtesy Muswellbrook Chronicle.

It’s been a six-year saga that we all thought had ended happily months ago for the thoroughbred breeding industry in the Hunter Valley, but now it seems that the battle goes on.

The Anglo American proposal to build an open-cut mine abutting the Coolmore Stud and Godolphin Woodlands Stud was, justifiably and sensibly, killed off amid concerns about the affects of open cut mining on the water and air quality in the surrounding areas. But big business doesn’t always want to accept the umpire’s decision. The Drayton South Open Cut site has been sold to Malabar Coal, a business backed by New York billionaire, Hans Mende and there is a $700 million proposal to build an underground mine on the premise that an underground mine won’t pose a problem in the same way as an open cut mine. That premise is, in Malabar Coal’s view, sufficient reason to have another go at getting the money from the coal resource. They say that their proposal is “sufficiently different” to the previous Anglo American plan to justify a reversal of the Planning Assessment Commission’s ruling of last May to ban mining on the site.

But is it?

The current Malabar Coal proposal would have the mine opening about 5 kilometres from the studs, and that, says Malabar Coal, is far enough away to minimise dust and water problems. Trouble is, that argument is simply self-serving, disingenuous, and plainly wrong. Malabar’s Chairman, Wayne Seabrook, is on the record as saying that because their proposal is for a mine that is “entirely underground” explosives “will not be required”. He said, “By going underground we take away the key issues, which are dust and open-cut blasting”.

Well, they don’t actually.

All mines use explosives – it’s a matter of degree, not a matter of fact. And the truth is that the effects of mining can’t be limited to dust pollution. It’s interesting that Mr. Seabrook neglected to make any comment upon the possible effects of underground mining on the water table, or on water quality. Maybe he thinks that horses drink wine?

Maybe Mr. Seabrook doesn’t venture far enough away from his plush offices to know that the coal will need washing at the mine site prior to transport over around 9 kilometres by open-sided conveyor to the loading site.  Maybe Mr. Seabrook thinks that the wind doesn’t blow in the Hunter Valley or maybe he just doesn’t know that coal dust is motile – it travels – when the wind blows. For evidence of that, just go anywhere in Newcastle that is close to the train tracks that carry closed coal trucks. Even with the trucks closed, coal grime characterises the areas.

His position is completely disingenuous. The mine site is planned for a position 5 kilometres from the studs. Any decent wind will carry coal dust that distance, and once the coal is out of the ground there will be dust. Surely Malabar Coal isn’t planning for an underground washery. They certainly aren’t planning for a 9 kilometre long underground conveyor.

The fact of the matter is that a large proportion of the Hunter Valley is a moonscape, thanks to coal mining. Enough damage has been done, and weasel words attempting to “flannel” the public and the NSW Government over this new proposal for the Drayton South site simply do no credit to Mr. Seabrook, or his company. They need to come clean and acknowledge that the concerns expressed by the thoroughbred industry are about the cumulative effects of coal and coal seam gas mining on the water quality, air quality, land management and the health of both animals and people. Drayton South is another incremental and detrimental step in a process that has to be stopped.

I’m not anti-mining. Rather the opposite. But I am anti-mining when the mines are planned for the wrong places. I’m anti-mining on the Liverpool Plains, for example, and I am anti-mining at Drayton South.

Let’s look at what Malabar Coal is content to put at risk.

The Hunter Valley is internationally renowned as Australia’s horse breeding capital. It is:

  • home to a multi-billion dollar thoroughbred breeding industry;
  • one of three International Centres of Thoroughbred Breeding Excellence (alongside Kentucky, USA and Newmarket, UK);
  • Australia’s largest producer, supplier and exporter of premier quality thoroughbreds;
  • the second-largest concentration of thoroughbred studs in the world, after Kentucky;
  • has representation by the world’s leading thoroughbred breeders;
  • a significant employer in the region, giving jobs many, many more people than the 320 jobs planned at Malabar Coal;
  • home to the most sophisticated equine support industries network in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Hunter Valley has a heritage of more than 150 years in thoroughbred breeding, and breeds roughly half of all thoroughbred horses born in Australia each year.

Australia needs coal for reasonably-priced energy. That’s not in dispute. But Australia has an excess of coal. The fact is that around 75% of the coal mined in Australia is exported. So the logical corollary is that Australia doesn’t need the Drayton South site mined, underground or open-cut. Maybe the New York billionaire wants more money, maybe Mr. Seabrook wants a bigger bonus, but the Hunter Valley doesn’t want any more of Malabar Coal.

 

 

 

Stay up to date with the latest racing news
Follow our social accounts to get exclusive content and all the latest racing news!