The Bowmans Creek Diversion DA 309-11-2001 Modification 6 was approved on 24 December 2010. To download a copy of the Environmental Assessment click here.
The approved project allows a re-design of the underground mine layout to allow additional extraction beneath the creek and its alluvium.
The project involves:
- allowing longwall mining operations that would result in a direct hydraulic connection between the Bowmans Creek alluvium and the underground workings due to connective cracking;
- amending the mine plan for all four coal seams to optimise resource extraction;
- diverting two sections of Bowmans Creek to ensure that the integrity of the creek system and associated alluvium is not permanently impacted by the proposal; and
- modifying relevant development consent conditions to facilitate the above
Key Benefits of the Project
The revised underground mine plan, which is the subject of this proposal, contains the following key benefits:
- It permits the maintenance of a cost effective business, with sustainable capital and operating costs, and thereby provides security of employment for 195 direct employees and 35 construction positions as well as flow on effects to the regional economy;
- It provides access to an additional 5.3 million tonnes of run of mine (ROM) coal through significantly improved resource recovery, and reduced sterilisation, over the four targeted seams than would be possible under constraints imposed by the existing development consent;
- It provides approximately $80 million of additional revenue to the State and Federal Governments;
- It provides significantly improved flexibility to modify the mine plan within the mining footprint and certainty that mining of lower seams will be technically and economically feasible;
In order to mitigate the effects of subsidence on the flow transmission capacity of Bowmans Creek, the project involves the diversion of two sections of Bowmans Creek (total 1.7km) that will mimic or enhance the hydraulic, geomorphic and habitat features of the existing channel including, pools and terraces within the stream bed, and large woody debris as a supplementary habitat feature;
- It will create diversions that can evolve in time to form ecologically diverse habitat in association with adjoining floodplain areas from which domestic stock will be excluded;
- It provides significant environmental benefits by way of enhanced riparian vegetation and a large area of existing creek and floodplain that will be excluded from degradation by domestic stock; and
- It reduces the salt load to Bowmans Creek and the Hunter River.
