The open cut mine is located on the northern extremity of the
development area and is bounded by the Main Northern Railway, Glennies
Creek Road and the New England Highway. It is comprised of two pits.
The Arties Pit is parallel to the New England Highway and was used to
develop the entry portal for the underground coal mine. The Barrett Pit
is located to the east of the Arties Pit and is the source of most of
the coal extracted by open cut methods. Initial emplacement of
overburden was to the east of the Barrett Pit behind an environmental
bund to reduce the visual and noise impact of the mining equipment.
Currently the open cut pit extracts approximately 2
Million tonnes (Mt) of Run-of-Mine (ROM) coal per year over a six year
period. The overburden emplacement areas are progressively
rehabilitated in accordance with the approved Mining Operations Plan
with a total of 100ha rehabilitated by May 2009. The final void will be
utilised for the disposal of reject and tailings material from the
underground mine.
Ashton Coal own and operate the Open Cut pit using
backhoe-style excavators and earthmoving trucks. Open cut mining
operations are limited to the hours of 7am to 10pm Monday to Saturday
and 8am to 10pm on Sunday and public holidays. A total of three water
carts are used at Ashton Coal to manage dust generation from
approximately 4.5km of haul road.
A number of open cut equipment has been sound
attenuated to reduce noise impacts on Camberwell Village and includes
bulldozers, trucks and loaders.
Coal is extracted from the lower section of the
Foybrook formation and includes the Pikes Gully, Arties, Liddell and
Barrett seams in the vicinity of the Camberwell anticline, which is an
upthrust that brings the coal seams closer to the surface.
