Sydney Water Awards Helping Miner's Greenwash

Tuesday, 04 November 2008 21:37

A recycled water pipeline installed at BHP Billiton's Dendrobium Mine near Wollongong is the reason for its win, but records of water pollution licence breaches on the Environment Protection Authority's (EPA) public register show that the mine ranks third worst out of eighty-one coal industry facilities across the state.

“A basic principle for any environmental award should be that the company is complying with the law.  Sydney Water has done its award program a great disservice and its credibility is in question,” said TEC Director Jeff Angel.

"This is also the mine whose longwall mining, only last year opened up deep metre-wide cracks in the rainforest floor within very close proximity to a major Sydney water supply dam. It has massive expansion plans further into the Sydney water supply catchment.  Environmental controversy has dogged the mine."

"The Sydney Water awards will facilitate mining industry greenwash. In 2007 BHP Billiton's Appin mine won an Every Drop Counts award within a year of cracking the bed of the Upper Cataract River and causing methane emissions so that you could make fire come out of the water. Peabody Energy were also finalists and they have destroyed a swamp and cracked and drained the Waratah Rivulet for 2km of its length.”

"While we note the awards are in recognition of specific projects within an operation, Sydney Water should review its criteria to include compliance with licence conditions and general environmental behaviour because the industry is using them to greenwash their bad environmental reputation in other areas such as harming the water supply catchments," Mr Angel concluded.