Confusion over land class for mine

THE war on the Wandoan mine by farmers opposed to its development have continued to criticise the approval given by the State Government's Co-ordinator General.

Farmers Cowan and Helen Keys claimed 90 per cent of the land for the proposed Xstrata project was classified by the government as Class A land type but Xstrata put the land classification in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) as Class C land.

“This of course makes so called rehabilitation easier for Xstrata,” a cynical Mr Keys said.

An Xstrata Cal spokesperson said unfortunately, the use of a variety of different land-classification systems has created confusion in the discussion of land quality and rehabilitation.

“The Wandoan Project EIS (December 2008) reported against the Taroom Shire Council's classification system, under which the affected land is classified as Class B and C of three classes,” the spokesperson said.

“However, the Department of Environment and Resource Management requested that the Wandoan Coal Project report against its own classification system in the Project's Supplementary EIS (November 2009).

“Under this system the affected land at Wandoan is class three and four of a system of five different classes.”

“The Project is aiming to minimise the change to land suitability classes that results from mining and ensure that the post-mining landform is stable, safe and sustainable.” The company spokesperson said they will use best-practice rehabilitation methods.

A spokesperson from the Department of Infrastructure and Planning said the results of the comparison between the systems showed that the land within the mining areas was of a lesser quality than mapped by the former council.