“We call on QCoal Sonoma, and the Queensland Government and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia to immediately halt the mining of the high conservation value Coral Creek, Collinsville, North Queensland, which should never have been approved. We ask that the governments require the re-growing of the trees cleared, especially vulnerable species for which it is becoming evident the offsets provided are unlikely to be successful.

We call on the Queensland Government to hold an inquiry into how mining was ever approved of this vital waterway upon which many families and farmers as well as ecosystems depend on. Downstream degradation of the aquatic habitat in Coral Creek, the nationally important Birralee – Pelican Creek Wetland Aggregation and the Great Barrier Reef will also go uncompensated. 

The predicated maximum groundwater drawdown cone from the Drake Mine EIS covers most of the farms in the Collinsville area. It is known that open cut mining can seriously affect aquifers, and diversions of major waterways have even more extreme impacts on water supply and also cause very high soil erosion and sediment problems downstream. The Qld and Federal governments are spending large amounts of money on measures to reduce sediment load onto the Great Barrier Reef – the royalties from the coal under Coral Creek will not even cover the downstream damage from sediment, let alone the loss of reliable water that will last forever.

The amount of coal under Coral Creek is 0.14% of the resource in the QCoal Sonoma, Cows, Jax and Drake mines that were designed to be expanding out to the Bowen River for decades. It cannot be maintained that it was at all necessary to mine Coral Creek.

Consider others in the community and our environment, and future generations please.”