Highlanders will be among the protesters demanding action from NSW MPs to protect drinking water catchments from coal exploration on Thursday.
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The rally will be held before the Lower House debates on a 13,500 strong petition calling for immediate action to protect Sydney Water Catchments from the impacts of coal mining.
The petition was sparked by revelations that the Medway Colliery, owned by Boral, in the Southern Highlands, was discharging millions of litres of polluted water in to the Sydney Water Catchment.
It was further sparked by a proposal by Hume Coal to build a greenfields coal mine nearby.
A spokesperson from Battle for Berrima said the mine discharges an estimated Olympic swimming pool of polluted water every day into the Wingecarribee River.
Academic Dr Ian Wright said the extent of the pollution was the worst he had seen in the Sydney basin in 20 years of studying.
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Battle for Berrima Vice President Michael Verberkt said coal mines across the area are having “serious and deleterious impacts” on water.
“The crisis at the Medway Colliery, which the EPA conceded at a recent community meeting may result in decades if not hundreds of years of pollution, is just one of the many warning signs that the Catchment is at serious risk,” Mr Verberkt said.
“What happens at these mines doesn’t just affect the communities in which they are located, it affects all of Sydney as it all flows directly into the Water Catchment.”
Mr Verberkt said while unused and operating coal mines are dumping “millions of litres” of “what regulators acknowledge is polluted water”, any enterprise run by a small business must prove any discharge is either “neutral or beneficial”.
The petitions calls for:
- A Parliamentary Inquiry into the risks posed to the current and future quality, supply and safety of water supply from the Sydney Water Catchment as a result of current and future coal mining and extractive industries within the Catchment
- Immediate moratorium on any expansion of any existing coal mining operation or approval of new coal mining proposals within the Sydney Water Catchment
- Immediate moratorium on any coal mining exploration within the Sydney Water Catchment
- An immediate audit of any and all discharges into the Sydney Water Catchment from any coal mine, operating, mothballed or closed
