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Clive Palmer s plan to develop a coal mine 10 kilometres from the Great Barrier Reef marine park is too risky to proceed, Queensland s environment department has found.
Environmental campaigners are celebrating after the department found the former federal MP s Central Queensland Coal posed unacceptable risks, including to water quality in the marine park.
But the mine s future is far from sealed. The final decision rests with federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley, who has 30 business days to make a decision or seek more information.
Mr Palmer s proposed mine site is on a coastal flood plain, about 130km northwest of Rockhampton and 25km northwest of Marlborough.
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The national Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development (IESC) has provided advice three times to the Queensland government on the proposal.
In December, the latest report from IESC said it had “extreme concern that the predicted impacts are not readily mitigated, especially the discharge of mine-affected water into Broad Sound and the [Great Barrier Reef world heritage area]”.
The report added: “The IESC cannot envisage any feasible mitigation measures, including offsets, that could safeguard these irreplaceable and internationally significant ecological assets and their associated water resources.”
Key problems with the mine, the IESC said, included “significant and irreversible damage to internationally valued estuarine and near-shore ecosystems subjected to mine-affected water” as well as risks to creeks, pools, and the direct loss of 8km of waterways.