Hunter Valley vignerons are furious at the new owner of two of the region's biggest mines after a botched blast on Friday, April 13 sent a cloud of pollution over local farmland.
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At 11.53am on the Friday a blast at Yancoal’s Mount Thorley Warkworth mine sent a huge cloud of orange dust over nearby farmland.
Earlier this year a blast left the company’s Hunter valley Operations (HVO) on January 17 this year headed west over Jerrys Plains.
“This is not an isolated incident,” Antony Bainton of Bainton Family Wines said.
“Yancoal has demonstrated a total lack of respect for the health and livelihoods of its neighbours.
“These mines are huge and they are causing pollution that is damaging people’s health. The least the government could do is ensure they are complying with their licences. We need better protection.”
Broke vigneron Stewart Ewan added: “The Broke Fordwich wine region hosts thriving wineries but we don’t have sufficient protection from the coal mines. We get blanketed by pollution at times, and the land mapped five years ago as a critical industry cluster for our industry is not protected from expanding coal mines.
“The physical and economic damage caused by open cut mining remains a serious blight on our environment. The air quality in the Hunter over the summer and autumn has been terrible. We’ve been getting frequent alerts that it breaches the standard, but what’s being done to change it?”
Yancoal have released a statement saying the scheduled blast was initiated at 11:51am in the West Pit and did create some dust, which was expected given the type of material being blasted at the time.
The subsequent plume was observed to cross the Putty Road, where it then dissipated over the Mt Thorley and Bulga Mine areas.
“We refute the accusations related to the blast, as well as the deliberately inflammatory remarks made against our people regarding their respect for surrounding industries,” the Yancoal spokesman said.
“We take our responsibility for managing blasting activities seriously and continuously monitor and manage any potential impacts.
“Yancoal has a proven history of responsible environmental management and continues to instil our commitment to quality mining practices into the newly acquired Mount Thorley Warkworth operation.”
The Environment Protection Authority’s (EPA) investigation into the blast in January from HVO is progressing however the EPA did not receive any complaints or reports of a blast on April 13 from MTW mine. EPA says it encourages the community to report any concerns about environmental pollution to the EPA’s environment line on 131 555.
