Farmers fight for food bowl on edge of Great Barrier Reef amid coal exploration push

ABC News05-18

In short: Fox Resources is seeking a mineral development licence to explore for coking coal near Bundaberg.Farmers and the Bundaberg Regional Council say they do not want "dirty" mining operations in ...

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Bruce Garlick is the executive director of Fox Resources.(ABC Wide Bay: Grace Whiteside)Mr Garlick said the exploration phase would take up to three years with a potential mine to follow within seven years.\"If we decide to continue, it will take another three to four years before any type of mine is developed,\" he said.Fox Resources pushes aheadA department spokesperson said Fox Resources has provided an updated work program and a large amount of technical information as part of the reassessment process.\"Such as hydrological reports, scoping studies for the project, updated financial and technical capability statements, coal resource information, and other information to address public interest concerns,\" they said.Mr Stewart said he was not able to put a time frame on when a decision would be made.\"It depends upon how quickly we can get that information together, if there are any further questions we need to ask Fox Resources, any further information we may need,\" he said.\"All that work needs to happen through the department before a final decision is made.\"The West Australian company has also employed specialist corporate communication consultancy firm Fensom Advisory to help manage its public image and has established a regional reference group to engage with locals.\"The emphasis really is on obtaining community feedback and assisting people to understand the truth of what's actually happening with the project,\" Mr Garlick said. Mr Mason is concerned about the MDL's potential impact on water and food production.(ABC Wide Bay: Grace Whiteside)Mr Mason has 15,0000 macadamia trees on his property north of Bundaberg and he fears the impact to groundwater and food production. \"Underground they've got to go through a number of aquifers to access the mine and drill for exploration,\" he said.\"If we don't have that water, or if that water becomes contaminated, that straightaway jeopardises the whole economy of Bundaberg and this area as a food hub. Bundaberg is the biggest macadamia-nut-producing region in Australia.(ABC Wide Bay: Johanna Marie)\"If people think there's a cost-of-living crisis at the moment, you imagine taking away one of the biggest food bowls within Australia.\"There's only one way food prices are gonna go and that's up, isn't it?\"Community oppositionBundaberg Mayor Helen Blackburn said the council was vehemently opposed to the application. Mayor Helen Blackburn says the council and community are opposed to mining.(ABC Wide Bay: Grace Whiteside)\"This is prime agricultural land and we don't want that damaged by mining,\" she said.\"The community is not in favour of having a mine and this is a dirty thing to have in a region that is clean and green.\"Residents Against the Mine action group coordinator Alan Corbett said people's health and the health of the Great Barrier Reef needed to be a priority. Moore Park Beach resident Alan Corbett fears coal dust will reach the Great Barrier Reef.(ABC Wide Bay: Grace Whiteside)\"The very real prospect of coal dust … will affect the health of the young and old,\" he said.\"Eventually it will get into rivers, the Kolan River, and that can then go out into the Great Barrier Reef area.\"But Mr Garlick said the mine would not have an open pit and the coal would be dampened down with water before being brought to the surface.\"It's highly unlikely there'll be dust anyway because the coal is coming up moist,\" he said.\"All we'll have is a small what we call a portal, where a truck will go down and extract the coal from below the ground, and on the surface there's a processing plant and there's also a stockpile that will be there.\"Explaining that, we were not going to have any impact on the aquifers or the underground water.\"A strong market for metallurgical coalThe MDL is around 400 kilometres outside of the flagship coal mining regions of the Bowen and Surat Basins, but coal analyst and commodity expert Banmeet Kurmi said it was \"quite possible\" that coal would be found in Bundaberg.He said the metallurgical coal market was strong and \"prices are very high\".\"It's not surprising if there is a significant deposit that somebody would want to develop it given that the fundamentals in the global market supply side are very tight going forward,\" he said.\"The current price is $250 a [US] ton. Residents have placed anti-coal-mining signs around Bundaberg.(ABC Wide Bay: Scott Lamond)\"That provides an incentive for new producers to invest in coal mines because there are good returns.\"If approved, Mr Garlick said the community would benefit from coal royalties paid to the Queensland government and through the creation of hundreds of jobs.\"Approximately 200 people would be employed … and 20 apprenticeships,\" he said.ABC Wide Bay — local news in your inboxGet our local newsletter, delivered free each ThursdayYour information is being handled in accordance with the ABC Privacy Collection Statement.Email addressSubscribePosted 16m ago16 minutes agoSat 18 May 2024 at 4:26amShareCopy linkFacebookX (formerly Twitter)Related StoriesFarmers 'cautiously joyous' after Queensland food bowl is deemed no place for 'big, dirty coal mine'Young people are choosing high-paying mining jobs to set themselves up amid cost of living crisisEnvironmentalist slams approval of one of largest proposed greenfield coal minesMore on:Agricultural CropsBundabergCoalMining (Rural)Mining Environmental IssuesMining and Metals IndustryMoore ParkNut GrowingRegional Communities","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.24.0","shortVersion":"4.24.0","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2436158974"}