[Greens-Media] Coal is elephant in room at Farmers Association conference on global warming

[Lee Rhiannon]

MEDIA RELEASE
17 July 2007

Coal is elephant in room at Farmers Association conference on global
warming 

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has congratulated the NSW Farmers Association
for making global warming the theme of this year*s Annual conference
but said she was disappointed that the damage the coal industry is
causing to agriculture land and water resources was not part of the
discussion.

Ms Rhiannon attended the opening session of the NSW Farmers Association
annual conference. The theme of the conference is *Global Warming *
Opportunities for Agriculture*.

*Farmers around NSW are losing precious agricultural land and water
allocations to coal mining interests*, said Ms Rhiannon.

*It is excellent that the NSW Farmers Association*s President Jock
Laurie made climate change the theme of this year*s conference but it
is disappointing that there was no focus on the problems caused by coal
mining operations.

*Considering the burning and mining of coal results in 40 percent of
Australia*s greenhouse gas emissions the future of the coal industry
needs to be part of any discussion on global warming. 

*Looking for global warming *opportunities* is clutching at
straws in the face of damage done to agriculture by the coal industry.
Coal mining was the elephant in the room at today*s conference.

*Much of the Hunter Valley*s rich farming land has been lost to
massive open cut coal mines and now prime agricultural land is under
threat from coal mining applications in the Gunnedah Basin.  

*BHP Billiton*s move into the rich Liverpool Plain in the Gunnedah
Basin will see the drilling of 300 boreholes followed by the destruction
of creeks and aquifers from mining. Coal mining in this area would
destroy valuable agricultural land. 

*Water allocations for most irrigators in the Hunter Valley were
reduced to zero on 1 July, on the heals of the approval of the massive
Anvil Hill coal mine. Each year this mine will have to use 400 mega
litres of Hunter River water. 

*A 2005 Planning Department document recognises that the Anvil Hill
coalmine project would result in long term damage to major streams,
aquifers and dependent ecosystems, and the large hole left by the mine
would fill with saline water. That is bad news for local agriculture*,
said Ms Rhiannon.


For more information:  Lee Rhiannon * 9230 3551, 0427 861 568