Filling one mine pit with water is one thing - but Latrobe City Council wants to know what will happen when three open cut mines in the region suck up enough water to fill almost five Sydney Harbours over the next three decades.
What happened: Last week, Latrobe City councillors retrospectively endorsed a submission to the Victorian government for Energy Australia to access 630GL of water from the Latrobe Valley river system.
The plan? To rehabilitate its open-cut mine pit at Yallourn.
Energy Australia has frequently cited the rising costs of operating the aging coal-fired power plant as the reason for its scheduled 2028 closure.
Show me the money: The state government received submissions earlier this year from businesses, councils and environmental groups with suggestions for what Energy Australia will be charged for the water.
Latrobe City councillor Dale Harriman called for a compensation package for Latrobe City.
“We’re the only region in Australia that has three coal mines within 30km of each other, and we’re the only region in Australia that does not have a dedicated long-term state or commonwealth funded transition package to support the municipality through the closure of coal”, he said.
Why retrospectively? Councillor Harriman told the council meeting that council officers had not been given enough time to prepare the report for council to approve.
This meant council officers were forced to submit without hearing community feedback or having the council vote through the submission properly.
“The state government has called for a report and not given the [council] officers enough time to bring that report before council for council to approve,” he said.
Rehab recap: According to the companies that operate the mine sites (ENGIE, Energy Australia and AGL), Hazelwood will require 637 GL to fill, Yallourn 630 GL and Loy Yang 1,087 GL. This is an estimated total of 2,354 GL of water that could be removed from the Latrobe Valley river system over three decades.
The annual volume of water in the Latrobe River system is approximately 600 GL, according to the state government.
Hazelwood is approximately 30 percent full with water already. In December last year the state water minister, Gayle Tierney, set a price of $230 per ML for AGL’s water access to rehabilitate Loy Yang.
A fair price: Councillor Steph Morgan said the council’s submission for the Yallourn pit has three priorities: Setting a fair water price, assessing the cumulative impacts that it will have on agricultural and environmental land and assessing the long-term impacts on Lake Narracan.
“The greatest water entitlement process that’s ever happened in Australia’s history can be done in a way that is fair, that ensures our farmers do not miss out and that our water systems are not harmed,” she said.
What about the lakes? Friends of Gippsland Lakes member, David Nicastro, told the Gippsland Monitor: “Low cost drinking water is too precious to the community and the environment to be used to fill a disused industrial mining pit.”
Nicastro said there were more ecologically friendly options to rehabilitate the minesites, such as dry fills or part dry fills, where companies undergo stabilisation work on the pits, grade the edges and reduce the slopes.
But with a decision pending from the state water minister after September, it’s almost certain there will be three new Gippsland lakes in the next 30 years.