LIFE AFTER MINING

The former Rhondda Colliery is being transformed into a motor park and multi-tourism hot spot, more than 120 years after mining started at the Lake Macquarie coal mine.

The Rhondda Colliery opened in 1900 and was calculated to have an output of 1500 tonnes per day. The colliery operated using a rope with skips – they were attached by clippers to bring coal to the surface and as the full skip went into the tipper it would push the empty one out that was then caught by a spiked creeper chain and carried to higher elevation.

Operations ceased in 1971, and since 2017, the site has been operated by Yancoal and the mining company has undertaken relinquishment of its mining lease, allowing construction to begin on a $95 million project which will create more than 450 jobs during construction and 229 permanent roles once it’s up and running.

After powering the nation with coal for all those years, the site will soon be home to the Black Rock Motor Resort which will see Lake Macquarie become home to Australia’s first dedicated recreation resort park for motoring enthusiasts.

It will include a world-class 5.25 kilometre driving circuit, a driver training centre, go-kart racing, adventure-tourism experiences, a function centre, short-term accommodation and a café.

Yancoal CEO David Moult said he is very pleased with the outcome.

“We are delighted to have reached this significant milestone, relinquishing formerly mined land after an extensive and successful rehabilitation program.

“Yancoal wishes the new owners every success in realising their motor sport complex vision.

“Yancoal recognises that land rehabilitation and relinquishment is an important part of responsible mining. Ensuring that land can continue to be an asset for the benefit of local communities after mining has concluded will continue to be a key aspiration for us into the future.”

SNAKES, LIZARDS AND BIEDS OH MY!

Thanks to Snake and Spider Safety Awareness for Employees, some of Glencore Coal’s Environment and Community graduates were able to complete a hands-on training course in safe fauna capture, ensuring the safety and well-being of the animals and themselves.

With a focus on how to safely and compassionately catch and handle various fauna, the team learnt how to minimise harm to both the animals and themselves whilst expertly evaluating the animals for injury and providing the appropriate care.

From injury assessments to real-world scenarios, the Glencore Coal graduates are now equipped with the skills and confidence to handle wildlife encounters responsibly.

FARMING CONTINUES TO FLOURISH

The Bloomfield Group proudly owns and operates a growing farming enterprise across its operations, at the Rix’s Creek Mine and Bloomfield Mine.

Hundreds of cattle now graze across the Group’s rehabilitated mining and buffer lands. The cattle are performing incredibly well, with plans to further increase the herd in 2025.

The Bloomfield Group produces around 3,000 round bales a year of hay from its buffer lands and surrounding agricultural properties, and directly employs a dedicated team to farm and manage the land.

CLOSING ONE DOOR AND OPENING ANOTHER

With the last train of coal leaving the Stratford Coal site in August 2024, the focus now turns to decommissioning and rehabilitation, and the potential for the site to become a big part of the energy security puzzle to keep the lights on across NSW.

Stratford Coal Operations Manager, John Cullen, was proud of the work completed to reach this important milestone.

“As we work through the decommissioning process, we still believe in the value of the mine, and we are focused on continuing land rehabilitation and exploring potential beneficial uses for parts of the site.

“The actual works to rehabilitate and then maintain and monitor the land to achieve NSW Government sign-off is expected to take between 10 and 15 years, so it is a long-term process.

“We are also continuing to assess the feasibility of the Stratford Renewable Energy Hub (SREH), which has been declared as Critical State Significant Infrastructure, for future use of part of the site and have commenced applications for NSW and Federal Government approvals.

Yancoal is seeking approval for a pumped hydro scheme (storing up to 3,600MW hours, or 300MW over a 12-hour cycle) and an associated solar facility (with potential capacity of 330MW). It would be developed on and adjacent to the former mine and on Yancoal owned land.

The pumped hydro component of the project would utilise the mine’s existing dams and water supply to charge the reservoirs, meaning there would be no impact to local water resources. The potential solar facility would provide a portion of the energy required to recharge the pumped hydro during daylight hours.

The NSW Government gave the SREH Critical State Significant status in July 2024, given its potential significance to the NSW economy by helping to maintain energy security by providing long duration storage. If approved and developed, it will assist in maintaining the state’s critical energy security and continue the essential energy supply to homes and businesses.

HVO APPRENTICES DIG IN

Children attending Branxton Preschool have a fantastic new space in which to play thanks to second year apprentices from HVO helping to put the finishing touches on the new 300 square metre playground space.

The HVO apprentices rolled up their sleeves to get the play space ready for the kids to enjoy by building a 15 metre garden bed boundary, constructing raised garden beds, assembling outdoor furniture, painting the existing street facing fence, laying 90 square metres of turf, installing posts for a new garden entry sign, moving play equipment as well as completing other odds jobs.

Preschool committee member Jo Woods is managing the project and designed the new space. She is very impressed with how the apprentices went about doing so much work in one day and is ecstatic with the outcome.

“We couldn’t have finished all that work in time, without the help of HVO’s apprentices,” Jo said.

“They were all lovely and polite and nothing was a problem.

“They showed great teamwork and interacted very well with the kids and staff. All the preschool staff commented on how impressive the apprentices were after they left.”

One of the apprentices went to the preschool. Its director of 28 years, Natalie Caslick, recognised Sam Dalibozek and brought out his preschool photo. Jo said some of the parents of kids attending the preschool also work at HVO.

The former vacant lot of what Jo described as “sand and weeds” is being transformed into a fenced, landscaped space in which kids can learn and have fun. It is complete with a yarning circle, outdoor learning spaces, a dry creek bed and water area for water play, as well as gardens and a rainwater tank.

HVO apprentice co-ordinator Paul Watters is equally impressed by the performance of the apprentices and qualified tradesman Glenn Hudson from GAMR Services, who provided support, tools and equipment. Paul said it is important for the apprentices to appreciate the need to and the value of giving back to their community.

“We build community days into our apprenticeship training program. These days develop their trades skills as well as skills in teamwork, trying new things, and communication,” Paul said.

“HVO tries to help the community wherever it can. Apprentice community days align with our values of Think Sharp, Dig In and Care.”

ROCGLEN REHAB IS A WRAP

Whitehaven’s Rocglen Mine was an open cut mine producing up to 1.5 million tonnes per annum of high-quality thermal coal from 2008 to 2019. Since late 2019, rehabilitation activities at the Rocglen site have focused on transitioning the previous mine to its post-mining landform and establishing a final vegetation community comprising of woodland vegetation that blends into the surrounding Vickery State Forest and some pasture for grazing.

In June this year, Rocglen completed all major bulk earthwork required including topsoil spreading to establish the approved final landform resulting in 211 hectares of woodland vegetation area and 147 hectares of grazing area. Twenty-five hectares of revegetated rehabilitation is now meeting closure criteria for species composition and development.

Work will now involve ongoing post rehabilitation monitoring and maintenance of the area, with site relinquishment expected to take at least 15 years until monitoring demonstrates the site is safe and stable with established self-sustaining vegetation ecosystems that integrate with the surrounding environment.

Rocglen is Whitehaven’s fifth previously mined site where rehabilitation activities have been completed – others were Springfield, Melville, Brickworks and Sunnyside.

WHERE DO ENVIRO’S COME FROM?

In 2019, The Bloomfield Group’s Rix’s Creek Mine engaged with St. Mary’s Campus Year 12 environmental science class to develop a bespoke mine tour program that aligned with the HSC environmental science curriculum.

Held annually since 2019 (excluding covid years), the St. Mary’s year 12 class has visited Rix’s Creek Mine for an opportunity to view mining and rehabilitation in action. Aspects of exploration and defining a resource, environmental assessment and approval requirements, mining, regulatory requirements and land rehabilitation and relinquishment are covered.

One of the students from the St. Mary’s Year 12 class of 2019 now works as the Graduate Environmental Officer at Rix’s Creek Mine. Julius Harris-Payne completed his studies at Newcastle University in 2023. He undertook work experience at Rix’s Creek Mine while studying and earned full-time employment in late 2023 after graduating.

In 2024, the year 12 environmental science class from St. Joseph’s College at Lochinvar also attended the mine tour. Rix’s Creek Mine encourages other local year 12 environmental science classes interested in a site tour to contact the mine.

PEABODY HOPS TO HELP

Peabody’s Metropolitan Mine has contributed $220,000 to a breed-to-release program to help reintroduce the endangered Southern Stuttering Frog into the Royal National Park and across the Illawarra region.

These frogs are believed to have been geographically extinct in the national park for over 15 years and once thrived in coastal areas of NSW, but their population declined primarily due to the highly contagious chytrid fungus.

Purpose built breeding facilities have now been established at Symbio Wildlife Park’s headquarters in Helensburgh, where an extensive program aims to reverse the decline of the species and carefully select the best release points.

James Hannigan, General Manager of Peabody’s Metropolitan Mine said the mine was proud to contribute to a conservation program that could see this special frog once again make its home in the Royal National Park.

“All of us at Metropolitan Mine understand how important it is to protect the environment we live in and we’ve been contributing to environmental programs in our local community for over a decade.

“Symbio Wildlife Park makes a tangible impact on the local biodiversity and its breed-to-release program will deliver positive and lasting environmental outcomes for the region.”

The release of Southern Stuttering Frogs into the Royal National Park is planned for later this year. Following the release, a comprehensive monitoring program will closely observe the frogs to ensure they adapt to the area.

IT STARTED WITH A SEED

As part of its Rehabilitation Management Plan and Rehabilitation Strategy, MACH Energy Mount Pleasant Operation (MACH) has established the Warrawee Nursery, a facility used for native seed harvesting operations.

Nursery manager Troy Van Balen explained the nursery process and different varieties of seedlings and stock on hand that will be used for rehabilitation at various locations around the operation.

“Wherever possible we are using local provenance seed for the rehabilitation of the areas of land disturbed by mining operations,” said Troy.

“Consideration is being taken to what is suited to the site conditions, such as soil type and condition, landform, time of year, climate, water availability and vegetation community establishment outcomes, and the best methods of rehabilitation application.”

Ongoing seed collection programs are undertaken at MACH and then seeds are stored in the Nursery. When selecting seed, consideration is also given to its genetic diversity.

“The Warrawee Nursery allows us to propagate the seed in our used in our rehabilitation from local plant communities, such as the White Box Yellow Box Blakely’s Red Gum Woodland, listed as an endangered ecological community.”

SAVING OUR AUSSIE ICONS

Tucked away in a corner of the beautiful Barrington Tops is Aussie Ark, a conservation organisation managing insurance populations of some of the world’s most threatened species. Nestled on just over 2000 hectares of land, Aussie Ark has bred hundreds of animals since its inception over a decade ago.

Operations Manager Dean Reid said Aussie Ark has exploded with wildlife the last few years with about 500 animals alone in the Species Recovery Unit.

“We have 20 different species in our care. Eleven are here at Aussie Ark and nine at our Conservation Ark at the Australian Reptile Park.

“Off the back of the success of the Devil breeding program, we started to think about what other animals we could breed that fit into our ethos.

“We started to breed small macropods; the Rufus Bettong, Long-Nosed Potoroo and the Parma Wallaby as their numbers are declining in the wild due to cats and foxes.

“Then we thought we could do more, so we applied for a grant from Australian Geographic to build our Eastern Quoll enclosures.

The team didn’t stop there, enclosing 400 hectares of land for their Barrington Wildlife Sanctuary. All the feral animals were cleared out and 13 kilometres of fencing installed. At their last count there were 150 Bettongs, 50 Parma Wallabies, 150 Potoroos and about 50 Devils out in the sanctuary. Eastern Quolls are also allowed to be released once they are over 3 years old.

Fencing and keeping everything up to standard isn’t something the small Aussie Ark team can do on their own, but they have plenty of willing volunteers.

“AGL staff get eight hours each of paid volunteer time and last month we had a bunch come up for two weeks. They had about ten people a day here redoing all our yards, they built nest boxes for the Devils, painted all the railings, and all the stuff we just don’t get a chance to do.

“It’s really important that we have those local interactions with companies like that. Glencore is one of our biggest supporters as well. We couldn’t do what we do without their support.”

Glencore Coal’s Social Performance Manager Craig Strudwick said they first partnered with Aussie Ark in 2017 and have been continually amazed at the work being done.

“We’ve invested more than $1.45 million to support the cause, including the installation of 400 hectares of predator-proof fencing to create a sanctuary where endangered species can thrive without the constant threat of predation.”

Dean said what they’re doing at Aussie Ark is incredibly important.

“We are breeding animals to boulster populations and genetics with other sanctuaries nation and even worldwide, as well as for wild releases.

“The animals we’re protecting are crucial to the environment, they all have individual roles to play in the ecosystem.”

EVERY DROP COUNTS

The Hunter Valley RFS Support Brigade covers Muswellbrook and Singleton LGA’s and provides logistical support to the 31 brigades across the Hunter Valley District. The Support Brigade plays a key role in the local community by using their bulk water carrier to help support other brigades during fires and incidents.

This year, their bulk water carrier was damaged while transporting water to a fire in the local area. After some further investigations, the Support Brigade were told that they would need to replace the axles and suspension.

Hunter Valley Group Captain, Aaron Clerke reached out to Malabar Resources for assistance. Malabar were able to donate $10,000 as part of the Malabar Community Sponsorship Program to help get the bulk water carrier back on the road.