Open Cuts: Tearing the Heart out of the Upper Hunter

Fiona Uncategorized

hunter-valley-coal

Another poignant – and timely – post from Janice. Thank you so much.

Open Cuts: Tearing the heart out of the Upper Hunter

Of her book Rich Land – Waste Land (published by Pan Macmillan, Australia), Sharyn Munro says:

I am talking of an invasion of our country, a taking over of land and clearing out of people.

… and

I mean this literally.

Sharon Munro’s account, exploring the real costs to the land we love and call home, is worrying and distressing. She paints a vivid picture of everyday Australians battling to defend their land and rights against the might of the corporate giants, often in the face of devastating personal consequences, shattered health and displaced lives.

A little more than 20 years ago the Upper Hunter was a beautiful rural valley where a few small mines and a couple of power stations co-existed with vineyards, horse studs and dairy farms. Suddenly, insidiously, the number of mines increased six-fold and grew bigger as they were bought out by international companies which imported bigger machines for higher production and profits. Then they began to merge and run feral across the Upper Hunter.

Export dollars was the driver, Big Business and Governments the enablers.

If you understand that one new mine will create disturbance over 2,000 hectares, then you can imagine the impact four or five of these open-cuts has on a small community/town in close proximity. The open-cuts, a hundred meters or so deep, surrounded by mountains of overburden, run across the landscape like gaping sores, belching millions of tonnes of toxic dust particles that are harmful, if not fatal, to human life.

Muswellbrook has become an island in the middle of the open-cut mines. Overburden mountains have risen up all around the town and the life has been squeezed out of it. Muswellbrook people were promised there would be jobs for locals and largesse provided by the mining companies. Of course, it was too late when it was realised that any ‘local’ jobs would be mostly for those who had such skills as the mines needed – plumbers, electricians, boilermakers, mechanics etc. etc. In a year or two the citizens of Muswellbrook and its surrounds discovered they only had plumbing and electrical servicemen on a part time basis because they’d all been enticed to the mines for higher pay packets.

Today the town has dozens of vacant shops and if it weren’t for the passing highway traffic, you could roll a bomb down the main street and not hit anyone. Shoppers keep to one or the other of two large shopping complexes, do their shopping, and go home. There is now no incentive to linger. People who live in Muswellbrook complain of the layers of filthy coal dust that seeps into their homes and covers their verandahs, patios and garden plants.

Wybong, 20 kms to the west of Muswellbrook, was a small farming community. A scenic bit of country known as the Ark of the Hunter for its biodiversity treasures, there were many people who tried to stop Centennial Coal from going ahead with the Anvil Hill mine and in 2004 they won a Federal Envirofund Grant for ecological studies which found more than 30 threatened flora and fauna species.

In 2006 an unprecedentedly diverse group – farmers, newer locals on small rural blocks, winemakers, tourism operators, Greenpeace, climate change activists, climate-concerned city and country folk, and academics – joined forces to stop the mining of Anvil Hill. It was the first major fight against King Coal.

Hundreds of people arrived to camp on private land within the exploration lease. They walked out to a paddock and lay down to form a human sign – “Save Anvil Hill” – and were photographed from a helicopter. In response, NSW Minerals Council CEO Nikki Williams wrote an open letter to Sydney papers attacking “publicity stunts by a handful of activists” and claiming that “shutting down coal production” would “destroy NSW’s economy”.

In December 2006, a young activist named Peter Gray won an historic victory in the Land and Environment Court against Planning’s acceptance of the “flawed and invalid” environmental assessment for Anvil Hill.

But it didn’t matter what anyone did or said, because in June 2007, Planning Minister Frank Sartor approved Anvil Hill. Centennial Coal sold the project to Xstrata who renamed it Xstrata Mangoola to get rid of the taint of opposition, and let it sit awhile as the Anvil Hill Protest Group was bankrupted by its court cases against Centennial. The protesters won, yet still lost because the NSW (Labor) Government gave the green light anyway. Wybong is now a totally depressing place for the many kilometres Xstrata has fenced.

Ten kilometres to the south of Wybong is the small town of Denman, the people of which believed the claims that the mine would bring more jobs and business. They were soon to realise that this was an illusion of huge proportions. What happened is it removed many small landowners and their custom, and the mine does not buy locally. There were no new jobs, Instead, the mine stripped the town of its tradespeople as they took advantage of the higher wages offered. As happened in Muswellbrook, Denman’s agricultural store is struggling to survive as the mines swallow up the farms. In Muswellbrook four irrigation and farm machinery companies closed their doors and as I write, there are four new mines proposed on the western side of Denman. If these go ahead, Denman will lose farms, vineyards and wineries, and the jobs associated with these rural businesses – and the town of Denman will shrink further.

Upper Hunter winemakers are vehemently opposed to the march of King Coal and Bob Oately, who owned the very successful Rosemount winery, spent big dollars as he joined with other concerned people to stop the Bengalla Mine – a stone’s throw from the centre of Muswellbrook. The mine was also a stone’s throw from one of Bob’s best vineyards at Edenglassie on Muswellbrook Road and his Roxburgh Vineyard a kilometre away as the crow flies. The fight went all the way to the High Court and they won. But, as happened at Wybong, Bob Carr’s Labor Government simply shifted the goal posts and the mine was approved.

Bengalla Mine is smack bang in the middle of fertile river flats. When the Carr Government gave the green light for Bengalla to proceed despite the High Court ruling in favour of the protesting group, it meant that King Coal had the door opened wide to dig up the rest of the area. In a very short period of time the Mt. Arthur Mine got underway on the eastern side of Muswellbrook Road so that, together with Bengalla, the pollution spelt the demise of the Oatley vineyards.

Bob Oatley’s two best vineyards were impacted by the pollution and became unviable. Rosemount winery at Denman was the town’s biggest employer and was a popular tourist attraction that was all lost because there is nothing ordinary people can do to save their livelihoods or property from these marauding corporate giants who wield the power to overrun and swallow up the land and its people.

The open-cuts are quickly marching south and spreading east and west, swallowing up all in their path and landholders are in a constant state of fear for their livelihoods and their health. They fear for their water as much as for their environment as coal seam gas also threatens wineries and tourism. Coalmine dust risks heavy metal contamination of the water, the soil and the air but there is nothing the people can do stop the corporate giants.

The corporate giants are nothing but kleptocrats – not only do they steal get our minerals at an absurdly low price, they also steal the land and the water that sustain us.

879 thoughts on “Open Cuts: Tearing the Heart out of the Upper Hunter”

  2. Yep, it was me Jackhawks. We’ve got a nice little support group here.

    Suckling will be a loss, Victoria. But I’m liking the look of a couple of kids coming through. Grimley’s been given a hard time by fans, but I see something there. Jed Anderson is a jet. And Bradley Hill looks like fulfilling his potential from last year.

  4. opps! sorry

    No need for an apology, Augustus – moi is delighted to have another nip. Or three *hic* (washes whiskers carefully and even more daintily)

  5. It’s because I am tired. 😦
    However I’m waiting up for #1 Son to ring me to go pick him up from the station after a night pretending to take over the world with his Uni mates. 😀

    Also, I thought I’d wait out the clock till midnight just to make sure Bill Shorten doesn’t spring that resignation on us at the last minute. 😉

  6. I like what they’ve done with Abbott, actually. It reminds me of those cooking shows, where they show the ingredients, make a token effort with them and then pull out something ‘prepared earlier’. It’s like the Coalition politico-media complex have done the same thing. “We haven’t got time to rehabilitate Tony properly, but we were planning on doing this and…. here’s one we prepared earlier.” People aren’t supposed to notice that he’s just a mock-up, with little resemblance to the ingredients they were making him out of.

  9. Good question on twitter

    @TurnbullMalcolm Malcolm, will you come to the aid of Adele Ferguson as her ‘Freedom’ is under threat? Or does the name Gina change things?

  10. Aguirre,

    More like those fast food photo shoot’s, look fantastic, so edible, but in reality taste like shit and look nothing like the image in the advertising.

  12. Victoria – beware the recycled player. Less of them succeed than is healthy. That said, his pre-season has been all right.

    There’s the ex-Geelong player too, whose name i always forget. Is it Simpkin? He’ll be useful.

  14. Hockey’s more your fast-food ad. All calories, no nutrition, with just enough sugar sprinkled over the top to take the bitter taste off.

    Mesma’s a teaspoon of cod liver oil.

    Pyne is a Wizz Fizz.

    Bronnie’s like one of those things your grandmother made with orange peel.

  18. Chris Kenny ‏@chriskkenny

    You set up a town for democracy and freedom and 100 years later to the day, it seeks to regulate our right to speak. #lateline #canberra

    5 mins RubyRainbow RubyRainbow ‏@ColouredView

    @chriskkenny Just another News Ltd misrepresentation & attempt to deceive. So afraid of being accountable for what you print. #lateline
    Expand

    4 mins Space Kidette Space Kidette ‏@SpaceKidette

    @ColouredView @chriskkenny Ltd News is what it is Chris, limited news!

  19. Aguirre,

    I don’t know which is funnier

    Mesma’s a teaspoon of cod liver oil.

    Pyne is a Wizz Fizz.

  21. Victoria – seeing as we lost Young and Murphy, I think Simpkin is a handy back-up of that type. Though first game I saw him play he turned his back on a ball kicked his way and got hit in the back of the head. That wasn’t too encouraging.

  23. I think the Coalition’s latest strategy came unstuck today.

    See, they planned to act all nice and gentle. Scott Morrison bunged on a new, kindly persona instead of his usual spitting and snarling. Turnbull did a weird impersonation of Mother Theresa in an interview this afternoon, claiming he was losing a lot of sleep because he was so worried about what would happen to our newspapers. All very weird.

    When that heckler did her thing during QT and the strategy became obvious. Act nice and hire bogans to do the dirty work – the Tattooed Bogan from the Western Subusrbs, the Bogan Heckler today, and who knows how many more all lined up and rearing to go.

    But some 2GB announcer wasn’t impressed with the Bogan du Jour and told her off. The strategy collapsed, just like Abbott’s approval figures. Even some twit of a radio announcer showed he has more shreds of decency that Abbott and Co. I bet Peta and her strategists didn’t expect that. And anyway, how long can the shadow front bench play nice? They’ll keep trying, but I bet that before the end of the week someone reverts to type and/or Peta runs out of the ultra-strength tranquillisers or the magic mushrooms she’s been feeding to the shadow front bench. They’ll be back to their usual spitting and kicking before next week.

  25. leonetwo

    Since when does 2gb denounce trolls and bullies. They usually encourage this behaviour

  27. Aguirre,

    He released no policy. He spent the whole year releasing no policy. He opened 2013 with a booklet devoid of policy.

    Interesting story from Q&A last night.

    I was sitting there, quiet as a mouse, and twice as well-behaved, when Chris Pyne started answering his first question. Out came ‘The Plan’ with a flourish. Well, out came the biggest groan I could muster when he did it. I couldn’t help it, it was just such an obvious artifice. And then when he started reading from it as if it was holy writ from the Coalition Bible According to Abbott, as if it contained serious policy and factual information about their Education Policy, well, I just went, “What?” and rolled my eyes to the heavens.

    And it was at that time, when Tony Jones had turned to Peter Garrett for his response, that Christopher Pyne turned to me, and I saw, for the first time, and probably the only time, the dark heart that beats inside that man. Through his eyes. As they say that if you stare into a person’s eyes you see all the way through to their soul. Talk about a man possessed by the Black Oil.

    Anyway, I kept up the background groaning and sighing throughout the whole hour. I don’t know if anyone heard it on TV, but it sure pee’d off the Young Liberals in front of me. 😀

  29. As i posted earlier the attack on the media changes will be huge by the OM tomorrow but expect to see News Ltd go absolutely feral.

    Front pages everywhere.

    Interesting to see what the government has in return or perhaps they will be happy for the OM to concentrate on that particular issue.

  30. C@t,

    Thats the thing they need to keep referring to the Coalition “Bible”, well as Tony once admitted to Kerry OB unless it’s totally scripted you can’t believe a word I/we say

  33. leonetwo,
    One wonders whether that 2GB night time announcer is being taken out back of the studio and being put in front of the firing squad, for breaking ranks, even as we speak.

  36. I was wondering what Abbott was. I considered a durian. Maybe a fugu fish – it’s not considered tasty but people want to try it just to say they weren’t killed by it. It strikes me as very similar to the attitude the electorate has to Abbott.

  37. Well! apparantly we are going back to Soviet style information control with the new media reforms

    “News Ltd chief executive Kim Williams described the legislation as as “retrograde”.
    “This government will go down in history as the first Australian government outside of wartime to attack freedom of speech by seeking to introduce a regime which effectively institutes government-sanctioned journalism,” he said.”

    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/news-ltd-ceo-kim-williams-rejects-federal-governments-media-reform-package/story-fncyva0b-1226595433633

    But they are happy about the reduction in licence fees

  39. Joan Evatt ‏@boeufblogginon

    Pat Howard & Mickey Arthur – are coming out of this issue looking like barely competent kindergarten teachers. #cricket #cricketincrisis

    Not Happy, Joan!

  41. victoria, C@tmomma
    I was sure Alan Jones would have that woman on his show tomorrow and he’d be praising her as a wonderful example of people power or whatever. And I’m also pretty sure that by now someone has done something painful to that 2GB announcer.

    But it was good while it lasted. If a 2GB announcer can go against the trend who knows what else might happen.

  44. Certainly, SK. I was trying to come up with examples of foods that have no nutritional value, because that’s the way I see the Coalition. LIke a big dessert tray of things that make you sluggish and slow. But I failed that with a couple of them anyway.

    Do any of you remember a thing they used to sell years ago – it was sherbet in a sort of yellow cylindrical paper container about the size and shape of a glue stick, with a stick of liquorice poking out of it? I can’t recall the name of it.

  45. Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III is no smelly hippie. He became chief of U.S. Pacific Command last year after running the maritime portion of NATO’s 2011 war against Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi. To Locklear, the consequences of a warming planet are likely to “cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.”

    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/03/climate-change/

  46. c@tmomma,

    My understanding is there has been a number of incidents re discipline on the India tour.

    On a individual basis the incidents have been minor but were causing a bit on angst with the tour management.

    This latest was the straw that broke the back of the camel so to speak.

    It should be remembered that Watson is the only player to spit the dummy.

    In fact, James Pattison has put his hand up and declared it a fair cop.

    A bit more to it than just this one incident.

  50. SK

    I linked the article earlier. I found it to be convoluted. It would appear that for some reason the NSW Libs are going to be a little less forthcoming. Wonder why? I get the feeling they want to shut this investgation down, as the blowback to the fibs is potentially huge.

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