THERE aren’t too many fence sitters when it comes to the proposed coal mine in Margaret River, with views polarised firmly in the ‘for’ or ‘against’ camp.
THERE aren’t too many fence sitters when it comes to the proposed coal mine in Margaret River, with views polarised firmly in the ‘for’ or ‘against’ camp.
News emerged in August last year that NSW-based company LD Operations was planning to develop a coal mine on land 15 kilometres outside of the Margaret River township.
Given that the region developed from a dairy grazing area into a tourism hub after the first vineyards were planted in the 1960s, fierce opposition to the development from local residents and business owners was hardly surprising.
Activist group The No Coal!tion Margaret River was quickly formed by locals as a way of opposing the proposal en masse, the Augusta-Margaret River Shire Council condemned the plans, and local business people like celebrity chef Ian Palmerston have taken a public stand against the development.
“The shire is concerned that the proposed coal mine could seriously jeopardise tourism, viticulture and agricultural industries and the brand Margaret River, which currently provides great economic benefit built up over many years of promotion and marketing of the region,” the Augusta Margaret River Shire Council said.
The immediate responses of these groups were impassioned, but it is important to note the project is still well and truly in the approval process stage, with the initial submission from the Environmental Protection Authority due next week.
“If the company does get through all the approval processes and at the end of the sausage machine it gets all the approvals it needs, the government could then still say at a cabinet level, ‘we don’t think this is appropriate for Western Australia’, and then make the decision to not allow it to happen,” Mines and Petroleum Minister Norman Moore said in parliament in November.
Coal mining and tourism seem to be strange bedfellows, but are there any scientific reasons to oppose the development?
According to local farmer and agritourism operator Brent Watson, the mine will have a direct adverse effect on the region’s underground layer of water-bearing material, known as the Leederville acquifier – a critical asset to the region’s agricultural industry, which is a critical tourism asset.
He says this will have obvious flow-on effects for the Margaret River and its namesake township, surrounding areas, tourism, environment, farmers, and local businesses.
“We haven’t asked them to cease all coal mining in the world, we haven’t said we’re anti wealth or anti jobs, we have just said one thing – do you think it is wise to trash or even to risk the critical water assets of the Margaret River region,” Mr Watson says.
Local wine producer Cullen Wines operates biodynamically and is in strong opposition to the development.
“The brand Margaret River is, not just in respect to wineries, about purity, and the environment; the beauty of the area is very much a part of that brand and coal mining flies in the face of that,” Cullen managing director Vanya Cullen says.
Since August, LD Operations has named a number of potential benefits to the region, such as job opportunities (200 directly and potentially 800 indirectly throughout the area), but Ms Cullen questions the validity of this when compared to the value of the region’s agricultural and tourism industries.
“As a wine region it has been going for 40 years and it has recognition on a world stage. In another 200 years goodness knows what that potential would be then. The possibilities for the economy and employment are far greater than what the coal miners are proposing,” she says.
