BAM QUESTIONS CONTRADICTIONS ON CENTENNIAL’S WEBSITE
Community group Blackalls Against the Mine (BAM) has questioned information on the Centennial Coal Company’s website.
According to BAM spokesperson Paul Moors, Centennial Coal has recently removed the term “auger mine” from the list of mining methods in its on-line glossary.
Formerly the company’s list of mining methods on its website had included:
Auger Mine – A system of mining that involves the use of a large diameter scroll drill to recover coal near seam outcrops or in open-cut mines where the strip ratio exceeds economic limits.” This definition clearly links augers to open-cut mines while underground mines are not mentioned.
Centennial wants Olstan approved as an underground auger mine, so it’s a mystery that this key definition, auger mine, has disappeared.” said Mr Moors.
Has the company lost interest in the definition, or has it been removed because it describes Olstan as open-cut?”
The website’s list of mining methods also includes:
"Underground – A type of mining where the coal seam is accessed by a shaft or drift into underground workings.”
Centennial wants Olstan approved as an underground mine, but it plans to access coal by digging an open-cut trench. No underground shaft or drift into underground workings is involved,” Mr. Moors said.
The public can see that this is an open cut mine, nearly half of the coal would be extracted from a trench before the auger’s contribution is added.” said Mr Moors. “At the moment, ‘open-cut’ is the only term in Centennial’s list of mining methods that describes Olstan, because the augering needs an open-cut trench to start in, however, new open-cut mines have been banned in the Lake Macquarie area.”
“If Centennial believes the operation is permissible, why delete a key definition?” Mr Moors added.
According to Mr Moors, another mystery surrounding Centennial’s website and the Olstan project is the amount of coal to be removed.
The project description on Centennial’s website says that the mine would remove half a million tones per year for three years, but the company’s March 2009 Quarterly Activities Reports says this will be 1.5 million tones per year for three years – three times as much!
There are contradictions in the information provided by Centennial, so how can the public know which bits are correct? The first Olstan newsletter states that Centennial is ‘committed to striving for best practice environmental, management and establishing and maintaining open and honest two-way communication with neighbours and stakeholders.’ Has this commitment been jettisoned?” said Mr Moors.
Sources:
Centennial’s complete list of mining processes is attached. The new version is at this link.
Information on Olstan is at this link.
Extract of first newsletter:
Community Consultation
Centennial are committed to striving for best practice environmental management and establishing and maintaining open and honest two-way communication with neighbours
-and-
Extract of March 2009 Quarterly Activities Report (p8):
Olstan: The pre-feasibility phase of this project has been completed. The Olstan project is seeking to extract remnant coal reserves in the Newstan colliery holding using underground auger methods. Olstan is a three year project extracting up to 1.5 million tonnes per annum.
