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| Locals opposed the development of a the mine.(ABC News: Liv Casben) |
The fight to stop a multinational mining company from devouring the Bylong Valley in New South Wales began way back in 2010.
By 2015 Korean energy giant KEPCO held 7,385 hectares of freehold land in the valley for its proposed thermal coal mine.
In 2017 that landholding had grown to more than 13,000 hectares of Bylong Valley land. At that time the entire mining project was expected by KEPCO to directly impact/”disturb” est. 2,874.7 hectares within the 700 sq. km Bylong River catchment area.
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| IMAGE: The Land, 1 August 2017 |
Good agricultural land was being subsumed by this proposed mine and vital water resources threatened.
The Bylong Valley community and its supporters have fought on through a number of jurisdictions for the last ten years.
This is the latest legal success farmers & other residents from the area have achieved…….
On 14 September 2021 the NSW Supreme Court, Court of Appeal dismissed the KEPCO Bylong Australia Pty Ltd appeal of a Land and Environment Court of NSW judgment.
KEPCO was unsuccessful with respect to each of the five ground of appeal against the primary judge’s dismissal of its challenge to the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) decision and was ordered to pay the costs of the active respondent, Bylong Valley Protection Alliance Inc.
KEPCO can of course seek special permission to appeal to the High Court of Australia and, it seems likely that mindlessly pro-mining NSW Deputy Premier & Nationals MLA for Monaro John Barilaro will encourage such an action.
However, this 14 September Court of Appeal judgment was unanimous and that gives cause for comfort.
ABC News, 14 September 2021, excerpt:
Bylong Valley Protection Alliance (BVPA) president Phillip Kennedy hopes the decision will allow the community to rebuild itself.
"I'd really like to see this valley that's been purchased by Kepco under the pretense of a proposed coal mine 10 years ago when they started [to be given back]," he said.
"We would like to ask the South Korean government to release that land back, to allow the mums and dads and the farmers of Australia to come here and to bring it back to what it once was."
The appeal zeroed in on the interpretation of parts of environmental policy and whether or not the IPC's refusal was legally sound.
But today's verdict backed the IPC's judgement that the project would cause "long lasting environmental, agricultural and heritage impacts"….
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| Bylong Valley, NSW IMAGE: ABC News, 17 April 2019 |
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