Longwall Mining - Campbelltown - Georges River - O'Hares Creek - Wedderburn - Woolwash

Georges River Macarthur

General longwall mining

• longwall mining process - damage, cause and effects
• backstow - mining subsidence - backstow reduces surface damage, our politicians don't legislate for it
• Cataract river - Cataract river during the seventies
• Georges river dieing - Georges river greatly reduced water levels
• Iluka Creek - Iluka Swamp - Iluka Creek, Iluka Swamp, Georges River catchment
• Macarthurs rivers - Bargo, Georges, Cataract rivers - Broughton Pass Dam, Marhnes Hole, Appin
• Mine subsidence - mine subsidence in the Upper Nepean river catchment
• Georges River photographs - photographs of 7 km downstream of Freres Crossing
• Stokes Creek Wedderburn - Stokes Creek, Wedderburn, Georges River, Campbelltown
• Wedderburn - Wedderburns rivers, creeks and properties
• Wedderburn gorge - Wedderburn gorge, Georges River catchment, environmental damage
• Woolwash - The Woolwash junction with O'Hares creek Wedderburn - Minto
• O'Hares - Iluka - Georges River, O'Hares Creek, Dharawal State Recreation Area, Iluka Creek, Iluka Swamp, Maddens Creek.
• O'Hares - Wedderburn - Georges River, O'Hares Creek, Campbelltown, Wedderburn.
• Dharawal State Recreation Area - Georges River, O'Hares Creek, Darkes Forest.

• gr_punchbowl_kentlyn - Punchbowl Creek at the Basin Georges River NSW
• broken promises - longwall mining - deceit, denial and broken promises
• Cost clean coal - Clean coal, is it too costly to consider
• Longwall Mining - Global Climate Change, letter to Kevin Rudd, Prime minister Australia
• The hidden costs of clean coal - The environmental and human disaster of longwall mining - Multimedia from The Center for Public Integrity Washington DC. Video filmed in the mine and the effects above ground.
• BHP Billiton environmental damage - BHP Billiton, Fly river, Ok Tedi river, copper mines, Irian Jaya, Barrow Island, deforestation Indonesia, environmental damage, longwall mining
• BHP Billiton misinformation - BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal - Rio Tinto misinformation and the publics wrong impression of mining
• Politicians and approvals - These politicians approve longwall mining licences which pollutes our atmosphere, damages our rivers, water catchments and your homes
• Mine subsidence - longwall mining and its impact on water resources
• When longwall mining comes to your town - When longwall mining comes to your town, your home is in the hands of the mining company- from the US and applies here in Australia

Wedderburn - Illawarra Coal Exploration License ELA3474

Potential threat to Georges River near Wedderburn

The proposed licence covers an area of approximately five square kilometres, which is located about four kilometres north of Appin, in the vicinity of the Wedderburn area.

The purpose of the proposed licence is to investigate and determine more information regarding the geological features of the coal seams deep below the earth’s surface. This activity is part of exploration process which takes some time, and aims to assess the size and quality of a coal deposit and to determine if it can be economically recovered.

If the company decides to pursue extraction of coal from the reserve, then it must make application for a mining lease.

Location 3. O'Hares Creek - The Woolwash - Georges River - photographed 12 July 09

Location 1. The Basin on Georges River at Kentlyn (banner photograph taken during drought early 2009)
Georges River - The Basin

Location 2. The Cause way at Wedderburn Gorge Wedderburn Gorge

Location 3. The Woolwash, junction of Georges River and O'Hares Creek
Woolwash

Location 4. The water guage upstream of location 3 on O'Hares Creek Wedderburn
O'Hare - Wedderburn

Location 5. The water guage upstream of O'Hares Creek / Stokes Creek junction Wedderburn
Stokes Creek - Wedderburn

Location 6. Iluka Swamp in the Dharawal State Recreation Area
Iluka Swamp

Location 7. River crossing downstream of Iluka Creek on O'Hares Creek
O'Hare - Iluka Creek

Mining organisations in the past have denied the loss of water through their longwall mining activities. They have simply shrugged off the damage to properties, roads, railways, creeks and bridges.

They have stated that the water will reappear some distance downstream from where the water origially disappeared. We have observed water flow and volume on the Georges river for many months over a distance of 20 km or more and have found NO reappearance of water.

We chose The Basin at Kentlyn and the Wedderburn Gorge at Wedderburn taking photographs over a 6 month period starting in drought and covering the seasons including the wet months after the drought broke when one would expect the river levels to be very high..

The Macarthur Bushwalkers have now started to compile information on the water flow through O'Hares Creek which feeds Georges River. O'Hares Creek joins Georges river at the Woolwash near Campbelltown where the photographs on this page were taken.

O'Hares Creek meets Georges river upstream of the The Basin so the total volume of water flowing from the catchment should be seen here. It ISN'T and we are extremely concerned at our findings.

The photographs taken today support those findings with the volume of water merging with Georges River at an absolute minimum despite frequent rains since march when we first started our programme

O'Hares Creek

On this exploratory we found vandalism in the form of graffiti. There were two burned out cars, graffiti on cliff faces, trees and signs but the worst vandalism by far was the lack of water in Georges river caused by longwall mining, an enterprise fully supported by our NSW government.

The Environmental Protection Agency prosecutions

The state government prosecutes businesses and individuals for damaging or polluting the environment on a miniscule scale compared to what we are seeing here from the mining industry

Any company damaging rivers resulting in such damage should be prosecuted by the various NSW government environmental protection agencies which the same government choosed to ignore.

The state government chooses to ignore its own agencies in favour of the mines.

It is possible that should BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal start mining the new Exploration Licence Application (ELA3474) which is adjacent to both O'Hares Creek and Georges river that river flow may be even more curtailed and we lose both which has happened with the Waratah Rivulet.

BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal - commitment to environmentally sustainable mining?

BHP says rehab boosting river flow

Monday, 5 February 2007. 10:40 (AEDT) - ABC newsonline - ABC NEWSONLINE

BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal says its grouting program to plug holes in river beds is showing that the rehabilitation program is successful.

A BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal Company spokes woman says "Marhynes Waterhole on the Upper Georges River has seen a restoration in river flow".

"The monitoring which we are undertaking has shown that the river has now returned to its pre-mining health, the rehabilitation has been highly successful with no water loss in the river now as a result of the rehabilitation that has been undertaken," she said.

BHP Billiton - Illawarra Coal credibility shot

The Macarthur Bushwalkers have 100's of high quality photographs at our disposal which will be made available to the public, organisations or any person wishing to use them via the Internet within the near future.

Macarthur Bushwalkers will continue to monitor Georges river from Appin through to The Basin at Kentlyn, record and publish the results of BHP Billitons longwall mining on this website in the future.

Our work moves on with the focus now turning to O'Hares Creek and the creeks crossing and adjacent to the community of Wedderburn. We have now established sites to monitor Georges river which will be done regularly in the future allowing us to monitor the river through the seasons.

O'Hares Creek flows on the eastern side of Wedderburn and is located central to the catchment area of the Georges and Woronora rivers plus the Waratah Rivulet.

O'Hares Creek is a tributory of the Georges river. It starts in the Dharawal State Recreation Area near Darkes Forest. It is fed by Maddens Creek and the swamps of Iluka Creek near the Southern Freeway between the Illawarra and Sydney.

Rain fall on the catchment

In the last 6 months we have cancelled many of our normal cycling and bushwalking activities because of rain.The location of those activites were in the Illawarra, Royal National Park and along Georges River at Kentlyn and Wedderburn.

We know rain fell in the catchment. There is no doubt that this catchment has received rain which has given us the opportunity to compare our findings with the statements from BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal in the past about river rehabilitation, grouting, environmentally sustainable mining.

In the last 6 months we have learned of the damage to our rivers and seen first hand the effects on the catchment area.

BHP Billiton Illawarra Coal has lost all creditability with the Macarthur Bushwalkers, make no mistake we discuss these issues with everybody.

The NSW government reputation couldn't be any lower, from our local labour MP's to the premier. Ultimately the buck must stop with the government of NSW.

"Where are our rivers"

The hidden costs of clean coal

If any person reading the pages of this website has doubts about the affects of longwall mining on the environment, please use the following link and spend a little time viewing the footage - The hidden costs of clean coal

The video's show life above and below ground. They are from the the American state of Pennsylvania and show the horrific results of longwall mining that we will see in an Australia of the future. Australian journalists report but do not appear to investigate.

In addition we have a link to this footage of the Waratah Rivulet - When the Rivers Run Dry - Total Environment Centre - Sydney Water System - Another longwall mining casualty.