Rivers SOS has made a submission to the Thirlmere Lakes Inquiry, regarding its draft report.

The fact that the committee is examining the loss of a priceless asset in a World Heritage area surely calls for focus on the need for conservation of other valuable assets where mine plans are proposed. If a lesson has not been learned in this case, the Inquiry will have been a waste of money and time.

We hope this lack is addressed in the committee’s final report.

The report can be read in full here: Rivers SOS submission

The committee appointed by Minister Robyn Parker in 2011 to run an inquiry into the drying up of the Thirlmere Lakes held a public meeting at Thirlmere School last night, to outline its draft report, released last week and available online: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/water/ThirlmereLakesInquiry.htm.

The committee is now calling for comments on the draft before submitting its final report.

The main spokesperson and committee chair is Dr Steven Riley. Only Riley and two others from the committee of five were present to take questions from the community last night.

Rivers SOS , who have lobbbied for over a year for an inquiry to take place, made our disappointment in the committee’s draft report clear.

Public inquiries involve a significant investment of public resources, therefore the public is entitled to expect an outcome which will guide policy in future. The terms of reference requested the committee to provide recommendations to address “the factors identified as likely to have a direct or indirect effect on lake levels.”

The committee failed to do this, in keeping with its reluctance to allocate blame to mine impacts on the lakes’ groundwater regime. Last night committee members strenuously denied repeated input from community members, including ex-miners and a family who lived on the lakes for generations, who challenged the finding that mining had little part to play, though the drying of the lakes began soon after a series of longwall mines went within 700m of the lakes.

Members of Rivers SOS asked the committee to add some policy advice to their recommendations. We noted that their recommendations are for further research, and for remediation possibilities. But this fails to guide government policy regarding mine impacts, when assessing mining applications.

The extent of mine impacts on the water loss, versus the drought, may be 10%, 20% or 40% – an exact figure can’t be arrived at due to incomplete knowledge. But the draft report does on rare occasions touch on what the community and other scientists believe, i.e. that mining has contributed to the problem.

This calls for a recommendation for protection in future for sensitive and valuable sites, e.g. by suggesting adequate buffer zones or concurring with the risk management suggestions put forward in the 2008 South Coalfield Inquiry Report, concerning reverse onus of proof etc.

The fact that the committee is examining the loss of a priceless asset in a World Heritage area surely calls for focus on the need for conservation of other valuable assets where mine plans are proposed. If a lesson has not been learned in this case, the Inquiry will have been a waste of money and time.

We hope this lack is addressed in the committee’s final report.

We can provide contacts with many of those who spoke at the meeting, and with other scientists who have researched the issue, and further links to reports on the lakes.

The Thirlmere Lakes Inquiry Committee will present their draft Report at a public meeting on Friday July 6 at the Thirlmere Primary School Hall, 6pm- 8pm.
With short notice, no publicity and putting it on a Friday night, we fear very few people will turn up so please circulate widely if you can to all who would be interested.
We have serious concerns about the report and will be voicing these at the meeting.
To view the report and the information considered by the Thirlmere Lakes Inquiry Committee please visit: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/water/formThirlmereLakesinfo.htm
Submissions can be made online at the above address or by mail to Thirlmere Lakes Inquiry, PO Box 99, Picton. Submissions close on July 16 2012.

Background: Many local people including the Mayor and Councillors of Wollondilly Shire have been mourning the drying up of the five Thirlmere Lakes, which continued to dry even after the drought broke in 2008. By 2010, many were convinced that longwall coal mining nearby was having an impact, as well as the drought. Professor Philip Pells, a mining expert who has worked on mining related projects in the area since the 1990s, was interested enough to undertake his own research into the problem. Pells published an extensive report in 2011, which concluded that mining did indeed have some role, in altering the groundwater regime. (The lakes are entirely groundwater fed).

He presented his findings to Wollondilly Council, and Council then resolved to invite Pells to present again to an open public forum, to inform all the very interested locals. It was after this that the NSW Government set up the Thirlmere Lakes Inquiry headed by Dr Steven Riley. (Pells was unaccountably left off the Inquiry committee in spite of being the only scientist to have researched the problem thoroughly. But an employee of the mining industry consultancy, Parsons Brinkerhoff, was included on the committee, a conflict of interest as PB has done work for Xstrata who own the coal mine in question).

Wollondilly Council now decided to invite Riley to speak on the findings of his committee at the same public forum, alongside Pells. Riley assured Council that the draft of his report would be finalised by 22nd May, and so the forum took place as planned. Each expert was supposedly given half an hour to present their findings and Q and A was scheduled for a further half hour.

The Forum that Wasn’t …

Riley spoke first, waving a plastic covered copy of his finished draft report and informing the 100-strong audience that it was 50,000 words and 271 pages long, and had been peer reviewed by a number of scientists of “international standing” all of whom had responded, to quote Riley, with “you beaut.” However, he told us, we could not have access to the report just yet though it may be online in a week or two.

He then proceeded to speak for an hour, mainly on rainfall statistics and refill – in spite of prompts from the Council facilitator to finish up. Then, having gone half an hour over the allotted time, he informed us that unfortunately he was being asked “to shut up” and so would not be able to tell us anything of his report’s conclusions or recommendations.

Some in the audience were deeply frustrated.

It was also noted that the mining issue had not rated so much as a mention in the hour.

Pells then gave a truncated version of his own findings, including modelling which suggested that mining impacts have contributed to the loss of water in the lakes, though he agreed with Riley that the drought had a big effect.

Some locals suspect that the Inquiry is going to absolve mining from any blame and Riley’s strange presentation seemed like confirmation. Dr Peter Turner, a research chemist, managed to collar him afterwards and in their brief encounter Riley said that he does not agree with Pells’s modelling and does not believe that mining has altered the groundwater flow. His arguments were apparently not convincing. But the rest of us, who had turned up on a cold night to hear his findings, did not even have the benefit of these small clues into his position.

Perhaps he feels under no obligation to inform the public, but in this case the public were not amused.

The question remains: why the reticence at the Council forum? Since the draft is finished and printed, why was Riley unable to inform the gathering about its findings in spite of this being his understanding with Council ? If he absolves mining, surely his case can be argued succinctly ? (The audience was polite throughout in spite of disappointment and some bewilderment).

We await his draft report with concern. Riley told us that once it is released there must be a further three weeks of “community consultation and review” before a final report is published at the end of June.

Caroline Graham
Vice Presiden