Mining - or Agriculture ?

Yesterday a full page advertisement in national newspapers called for the government to consider the impact that a proposed new open cut coal mine in the Hunter Valley would have on the surrounding agricultural and industrial operations already in place.  This appeal was signed by twenty-nine of Australia's leading figures who represent horse racing and training, farming, wine growing and the vast chicken producing industry located in that area.

There is a proposal waiting ratification for the go ahead of the Anglo American Drayton South open cut coal mine which would be just five hundred metres from some of the finest breeding studs that produce Australia's horse racing champions.   It is contended that it is simply impossible to coexist horse breeding, wine growing, farming and chicken raising industries with an open cut coal mine.   Mining is a finite operation.  Once the coal is gone, the miners leave, but the agricultural industries have a lifetime measured in centuries.

Underground mining is less obtrusive, but open cut operations simply ravage the earth and gouge out great holes as they seek to get at the coal, and the overburden is set aside in huge mounds that create a visual moonscape.  These open cut operations charge the air with dust and divert aquifers.   At the end of mining operations, land rehabilitation in impossible and the miners usually just walk away.

The question revolves around the importance of sustaining an existing farming industry or sacrificing it to create more export dollars as we ship the coal to overseas countries to generate electricity - and increase global warming by releasing the carbon dioxide contained in this mineral.   Mining will create jobs, but this Drayton South mine will also destroy the jobs of those people with the skills to breed the best horses, grow our wine grape harvests and man the vast array of industries that can not exist alongside an open cut coal mine.

This is heading towards a classical tussle.  Big overseas money is behind this new coal mine venture and we certainly need jobs and to enhance our exports to create national income, but we also need to protect our precious agricultural land.   It is the usual question of the long term versus the short term.

A century from now we will have a planet with a vastly bigger population.  When the coal is mined out and the miners are gone, we will rue the day that we allowed prime agricultural land to be lost forever for short term gain.   The horse studs, vineyards and chicken raising industries located in the Hunter Valley because it was the best farming land - and once that is gone, it is gone forever !