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If you are an employee, sub-contractor, consultant or member of a stakeholder group or Community Consultative Committee (CCC), there are things that you can do if you feel that you are being bullied when dealing with a company.

Everyone at the workplace has a Work Health and Safety duty. Under WHS laws, while at work, workers must take reasonable care that their behaviour does not adversely affect the health and safety of other persons.

It is important that the bullied person take action early to document the bullying and seek support. There should be company policies and procedures that explain the courses of action available in addition to the legislated protections.

The Safe Work Website says that the negative impacts of workplace bullying on the victims or witnesses “is repeated and unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or a group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety.”

Examples of potential unreasonable behaviour include:

• abusive, insulting or offensive language or comments
• aggressive and intimidating conduct
• belittling or humiliating comments
• victimisation
• practical jokes or initiation
• unjustified criticism or complaints
• deliberately excluding someone from work-related activities
• withholding information that is vital for effective work performance
• setting unreasonable timelines or constantly changing deadlines
• setting tasks that are unreasonably below or beyond a person’s skill level
• denying access to information, supervision, consultation or resources to the detriment of the worker
• spreading misinformation or malicious rumours, and changing work arrangements, such as rosters and leave, to deliberately inconvenience a particular worker or workers

This could have the following effects on the bullied person

• distress, anxiety, panic attacks or sleep disturbance
• physical illness, for example muscular tension, headaches, fatigue and digestive problems
• reduced work performance, concentration and decision making ability
• loss of self-esteem and self-confidence
• feelings of isolation
• deteriorating relationships with colleagues, family and friends
• depression,and
• thoughts of suicide

The longer bullying continues, the more difficult it is to address and the harder it becomes to repair working relationships.

The Safe Work guide entitled “Dealing with Workplace Bullies” is a resource that persons who feel bullied should refer to. The Guide says that workplace bullying should always be reported as soon as possible. The Person Conducting the Business or Undertaking (PCBU) cannot address the problem if they do not know about it.

You can make a workplace bullying report verbally or in writing, including by:

• informing your supervisor or manager
• informing your HSR or union representative and asking them to make a report on your behalf, or
• using other established reporting procedures.

The Guide for Preventing and Responding to Workplace Bullying that is intended for PCBU’s clearly states that the PCBU has the primary duty under the WHS Act. Officers such as company directors must exercise due dilligence to ensure that the company is complying with the WHS Act.

The CCC Guidelines are less specific but does contain the duties of the Proponent, Code of Conduct for the Independent Chairperson and the Code of Conduct for Committee Members. The Guidelines outline the training requirements of CCC members re conflict resolution, and dispute resolution processes which should be followed.

View of the Maules Creek coal mine molehill seen from a distance. All that silica.

And according to last nights 7.30 Report, (“Coal miner’s death after silicosis diagnosis a warning on dangerous dust levels“) silica dust is 20 times more toxic than coal dust. This can be due to the size and shape of the particles.

Its one of the oldest industrial diseases in the world and is present where crystalline mineral dust is created when materials such as quartz, sand, stone, soil, granite, brick, cement, grout, mortar are blasted, cut or excavated.

There is a handy piece in The Conversation – “Explainer: what is silicosis and why is this old lung disease making a comeback?“

It’s not just miners who get affected by silica and victims who are diagnosed with silicosis can lose an average 11.6 years of life.

Now that water has stopped flowing across Elfin crossing without any obvious explanation, residents are extremely concerned that the lost alluvial groundwater is in the bottom of the Maules Creek coal mine.

The lack of transparency by the mine leads to more suspicion. Departmental investigations continue even though there is a clear lack of water going across Elfin Crossing. When there was less than 1 ML / day flow at Elfin Crossing it warranted action in the 2000’s when locals were involved, but not now.

Departmental officials have used the excuse that the water inflow into the mine pit is unable to be prevented, even though the groundwater zone 11 licences held by the mining company to offset the groundwater impacts are general security take.

General security licences require that water extraction must be switched off when requested. There is a historical precedent set in Maules Creek for general security licence holders to stop irrigators extracting water when the Minister issued a s324 direction the last time Elfin Crossing stopped flowing.

What we are seeing now is one rule for mining and another for everyone else.

The reality is that the groundwater inflows into a mine can be switched off – it just depends on how badly its needed.

Back in 2011, the Tarrawonga coal mine really needed it and it prepared a EIS for its mine extension with a plan to do just that.

The mine proposed (and the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) approved) the latest expansion to include a Low Permeability Barrier to prevent water inflows to the mine from Goonbri Creek.

It seems that a low permeability barrier ticked all the boxes for the PAC as the Tarrawonga EIS Executive Summary explained on page 8;

• construction of an engineered low permeability barrier to the east and south-east of the open cut to reduce the potential for local drainage of alluvial groundwater into the open cut;
• minimise the potential for future instability of the open cut batters formed in the alluvium;
• maintain the hydraulic character of Goonbri Creek by minimising the potential loss of baseflow; and
• maintain the value of alluvial groundwater, by minimising potential interactions with the mine final void, post-mining.

This shows that prevention of groundwater drainage could be prevented at the Maules Creek coal mine too.

If there is a risk of alluvial groundwater draining into the pit, then as shown by Tarrawonga, it is reasonable and feasible, for the mine operator to install a impermeable barrier to protect the groundwater. It might be a tad more expensive at Maules Creek, but there is an option and all it needs is a government to make that decision.

These are notes and not the official minutes from the Maules Creek coal mine Community Consultative Committee (CCC) meeting held on 16 May 2018 at the Boggabri Golf Club, Gunnedah Road, Boggabri NSW 2382.

The official minutes won’t be approved and released until the 16.8.2018 and due to the interest in declining groundwater levels at Maules Creek these notes are put up on the website for the information of the community. A functioning CCC is a condition in Schedule 5 of the Project Approval.

The CCC guidelines can be found here. Under Section 6 Communication with the broader community, the guidelines say;

“Committee members are encouraged to discuss concerns and disseminate information about the project to the wider community, including stakeholder groups”.

Attendees: Darren Swain (DS) – WHC, Cr Robert Kneale (RK) – Narrabri Council, Peter Wilkinson (PWi) – WHC, Scott Mitchell (SM) – WHC, Carolyn Nancarrow (CN) – Community, Cath Collyer (CC) – Community, Libby Laird (LL) – Community, Anna Christie (AC) – Environmental Representative (alternate) Kristen Golly WHC, Lindsay Fulloon, Megan Proust- EPA, Rebecca Scriviner- EPA.

Apologies: Steve Eather (SE), Jack Warnock (JW) – Community, Simmone Moodie (SM) – Community – Aboriginal Representative, Kerrie Clarke (KC) – Environmental Representative.

Independent Chair: David Ross (DR)

D.S: Excellent safety record.

Community: (Incredulous.) Does this exclude all the accidents in April?

DS: Yes.

Discussion of injured person. Flown to hospital. One has shoulder injury. Not well.

The other has slight injury. Bruising.

AC: what about the digger that fell in the pit?

PW: No digger fell in the pit.

AC: OK . Well, workers live in the community. Unless you turn into a spy agency, people will talk about work. So not something to report. What are the triggers for disclosing?

PW: not saying. Read it in the Act. Just say that this accident was reportable.

Employment /approvals/ consultation requirements….. see pdf Maules Creek Coal Mine CCC Meting. May 2018. Author: WHC.

(90 local employees. 41 new trainees)

LL: Automated trucks?

PW: “None at the moment. Consideration. New trucks start. Automated operation not in. July 2018 maybe.

Working with equipment manufacturer.

Gunnedah and Narrabri Council- we’re looking at it as a project. Technology is developing rapidly. Automated trucks are something for the future.

AC: The Independent Biodiversity Auditor didn’t spend much time here. In fact only one day to do all the offsets. And they are very spread out. Did anyone go with him- the auditor?

SM: Andrew Wright.

AC: I don’t see how he could have done a proper assessment. In other words it would take a long time to get to them and assess them. This compares very poorly against Boggabri Coal IB Auditor. We also had to work with them on this process. Their Auditor spent three days looking at less offsets that were closer together.

DS: Back to slides: 2018 clearing campaign finished in Mid-March.

We did get an official caution for not meeting noise requirement, but we are achieving environmental compliance.

LL: Is this about sound power and what pieces of equipment?

PW: fixed plant, transfer station, train load out… half a dozen pieces.

LL: How did this get found out?

PW: Compliance did an audit. It is written down.

LL: Are you talking about the 2016 or 17 Annual Review?

PW: 2016. There are a list of pieces of equipment that are higher than predicted in the EA. But this is meaningless because we are achieving environmental compliance.

LL: Disturbance Limits approach document- is it available now?

DS: It is on the website.

DS: Licence 13050 last actively used today. Currently in use.

All the water we use comes from the river licences.

P.W: “We have recently pumped water into the pit. State water asked us to store a bit more water in the pit.

LL: How much water?

P.W: About 700 ML- not exact. River water. Seepage in 2016/17- a little bit of an increase as having gone deeper in the pit. … Our licence, 3000 ML is enough for us in a dry year… We have zone licences, but we don’t have bore licences.

AC You have licences at the surrounding offsets. Aren’t they in Zone 11?

SM: There might be some offsets that have water licences.

DS: Water licences … there might be some one in Sydney… they can own a Zone 11 water licence they may have picked up some water licences…

AC: However you own water licences at the offsets, which are integral to the mine operation..

[David Ross intervenes “We don’t want to have a tennis match here. Cuts off discussion.]

PW: Keepit Dam release water on less occasions…

AC: Does the pump in you pit have a meter on it?

SM: It is manually read.

LL: what kind of meter- flow or telemetry?

SM: Flow.

SM: ….10 Megalitres….

LL: I have some Community Questions: Is it true that your conditions require the original MC mine water model to be recalibrated in 2017 and every 3 years after this?

SM: Yes

LL: so the water report that you provided community in Sept 2017 (following a previous written request in January 2017) was done using recalibrated model?

SM: No.

AC:  For the benefit of us all, can you please explain what is involved in recalibrating the water model?

SM:   Lots of things.  Water balance, input and our actual data.

AC:  Where is the model?

SM: recalibrated model is not publicly available.

AC: so was the water report that you provided community in Sept 2017 done using recalibrated model?

SM: Yes.

PW: Recalibrated model suggests the EA model overestimated seepage into pit.   latest model says less than 2 Megalitres per year.  I haven’t seen much water seepage in pit.

The Water Management Plan is not approved.

MCCM footprint is not in Zone 11. MCCM has very little impact on Zone 11. It is a northern Zone. Then we have a Southern Zone….

Contributions:

$60,000 to Girls Academy

Tonnage: Going to 11 million tonne.

SM: The Annual Review is still with DPE.

LL: Where is it we normally get it at this meeting? When submitted?

SM: Submitted mid March.

LL: Last year signed off mid –Feb. Dated January.

EPA Presentation – Lindsay Fulloon,

Larry Clarke- EPA technical assessments noise unit.

“Unit made up of Engineers and scientists. Specialist unit. Resource for Lindsay when assessing development applications.

Complaint response: compliance monitoring for mines. Century zinc- Solomon Islands- noise impact assessment.

Equipment- precision- data logger, noise prediction models, compliance assessment and monitoring. Wider range of responses- objective- correction factors from literature. Gov’t sets out measures se apply to industry. Gov’t sets objectives. Sound pressure levels measured precisely. Australian and international measures.

“sensitive receivers.. blah…. Blah…

Tolerance +/- 1 dB, tolerance ½ dB, some people can perceive 2db difference, all can perceive 3db difference.

Monitoring… Isopleth= noise contours.

NSW Industrial noise- specifies meteorology

Lindsay: 2 reports CCC member report, DPE established this condition EPA. If CCC wants more detail….

Reporting licensees required to submit on website.

POEO regulations- we don’t specify what requirement in the licences. Regulation – provide this information. EPA can’t change.

CN: Asking WHC workers not to park across driveways on Stock Road.

AC: What is happening at Willeroi?

KG: Willeroi is a combined offset. Not for MCCM. Rocglen, Sunnyside??? Nothing going on. Evidence of historical agriculture that has been managed.

AC: Shareholders at the Whitehaven AGM, 27th October 2017 report that Mr Flynn repeated the claims that there are no complaints.

The EPA has now refuted Mr Flynn’s statements, which were false and misleading.

At the Annual General Meeting, the following Question was asked by a Shareholder1:

“In July of this year the EPA of NSW responsible for issuing the licence EPL 20221 for the Maules Creek mine escalated the risk level of that mine from level 2 to level 3 which is the highest risk level classification. Of 49 coalmines in NSW, only 2 others share this serious risk classification and both of those mines have been prosecuted for waterway pollution. Why was the risk category of Maules Creek mine escalated this year? And how is this new state of affairs impact forecast liabilities especially regarding any facts disclosed for negotiation of new financing agreements in August”

This was Whitehaven Coal CEO’s response:

“The current assessment that you have described – that is true. We have certainly taken that up with the EPA. In fact we will challenge that and the substance of our challenge will really be that the 2 matters on which that classification turned on were largely be administrative matters not actually risk in terms of environmental outcomes. We were asked to perform an audit onsite for noise and dust. And they actually asked us to do that because they had a lot of complaints from a landowner nearby to the mine who is well, was in the acquisition zone and as many of you would know has been seeking to extract a very large price for his piece of land, ah, and so his modus operandi is to ring the EPA up several times a day and ah, and complain. Now the EPA then suggested to us, ‘Why don’t we just do an audit and just prove to everybody that its actually not as bad as this gentleman seems to be making out.” …

Now our view is the motivation including the initiation of that audit was to get, to deal with a serial complainant who had no basis other than a commercial one, ..”

LL: when residents heard of this exchange their response was- I wonder if he was talking about me!

What were the four issues that put MCCM at a level 3 risk rating?

Lindsay: Penalty notice for dust omissions, official caution, mandatory Enviro Audit. And will have to get back on the other one.

In 2012 the Namoi Catchment Water Study (NCWS) handed down its final report. The analysis was sobering for anyone living at Maules Creek or near the Narrabri Gas Field.

Groundwater drawdowns of “greater” than 5 m in the immediate vicinity of the projects are a huge wakeup call. Greater than 5 m could mean anything.

More worryingly for Maules Creek residents was the area of 2 – 5 metre drawdown in the area of Elfin Crossing shown by the top dark green arrow in the map below. The NCWS predicted a 2 – 5 m groundwater impact on Elfin Crossing would occur even though it is some distance from the depressurisation zone caused by the nearby Whitehaven coal mine.

The cumulative drawdown predictions shown in Scenario 1 (Scenario 1 included all extractive industry projects in the planning system at the Study’s commencement) was derived from the available data from government and company sources. By rights it would have included the Maules Creek coal mine data used in the Groundwater Impact Assessment by Australasian Groundwater and Environmental Consultants (AGE).

Despite using the same data, the NCWS predictions are at odds with the  mine consultants report which showed no decline in the Elfin Crossing area.

The contour maps (the full range of AGE contour maps years 1 – year 5 can be found here) conveniently show the groundwater impacts to be contained in a neat cluster around the coal mine without any impact on Elfin Crossing. The AGE modelling came out in 2011 before the NCWS Final Report release in 2012. However the NSW State approval of the mine was on the 23rd of October 2012, a couple of months after the NCWS release in July.

With the conflicting results at Maules Creek between the mine consultants and the independent NCWS, the NSW Planning Dept had plenty of time to revisit the water models. It did nothing of the sort and the Mining Minister at the time did his best to confuse, delay or nobble the NCWS. (Namoi Catchment Water Study gathering dust 23.10.2012)

The Planning Assessment Commission was clearly worried as it imposed new conditions relating to 17 additional groundwater monitoring bores and an unspecified number of core tests to better determine the hydraulic connectivity of the porous rock. i.e. coal.

It is unknown at this stage if any of this work was undertaken by the mine.

The Namoi Catchment Water Study then went into a black hole never to be seen again. The millions of dollars and countless hours of community time went with it.

The above aerial photo from the 14.4.2018 with the 300 tonne dump truck in the foreground shows the sheer amount of water in the Maules Creek mine pit. It’s deeply concerning given that the Tarrawonga and Boggabri coal mines are both dry and that the original EIS modelling estimated only 36 ML of groundwater would have flowed into the Maules Creek coal pit over the last 12 months.

Without transparent data to the contrary, this raises the significant prospect of connectivity of the coal seams to the Maules Creek alluvial aquifer.

De-watering Pump

In order to drill, blast and excavate the coal, the mine is systematically de-watering the coal seams.

The de-watering pump in the Maules Creek coal mine can be seen in this short video. According to the 2014 Water Management Plan the discharge from this pump ends up in the Mine Water Dam to be used for dust suppression.

The question for local people is – is the mine only de-watering the coal seams?

One 100 mm pump such as those shown here could move a lot of water if operated 24 x 7, 365 days per year. A 150 mm pump could move much more.

With pit pumping conditions similar to those at the Maules Creek coal mine (70 m head and 800 m of lay flat hose), according to suppliers, a 100 mm pump could lift 30 – 50 litres per second, 2.5 – 4.0 ML per day or 946 – 1,575 ML per year.

The last few months have been dry (with approx 40% of average rainfall)¹ and the full pumping capacity should not be needed at the Maules Creek coal mine to manage pit inflows. 

Groundwater Modelling

The groundwater consultants (AGE) estimated in the Groundwater Impact Assessment very minor pit inflows or “seepage” when they simulated over 30 years the average groundwater inflows to the Maules Creek and adjacent mines.

(See Fig 6.10 Maules Creek coal mine Water Management Plan.)

AGE’s 2014 modelling predicts the average annual loss of recharge to the alluvium due to seepage into the Maules Creek coal mine is a mere 50 ML/year. Even less in year 5. In fact the Water Balance model of the mines water usage shows a decline in groundwater inflow over the first 5 years to just 36 ML in year 5.

However given the current dry patch, the lack of runoff and the significant volume of water in the pit, how realistic is the AGE estimate of 36 ML “seepage”?

Anecdotal evidence is that this pump has been running for much longer than 1 hour per day over the last 14 months. If true, this would indicate a substantial variation from what the State Government has approved. Without any transparent data to the contrary it is time for the regulators to act.

Regulation

The estimated pit inflows to the Maules Creek mine are the basis for the monitoring and the Adaptive Management requirements of the project approval. If monitoring of the groundwater inflow shows adverse groundwater impacts then this should trigger a management response as required by the 2014 Water Management Plan section 6.3.4;

“Should monitoring results be outside of the predictions made within the Groundwater Impact Assessment (as summarised above) and indicate a substantial variation beyond the trigger levels presented, then an investigation into the data will be implemented to confirm the reason for the variation and to implement the relevant actions. The process of investigation that will be implemented is described further in Section 7.0.”

This ties vaguely to Schedule 5 of the project approval which requires notification within 7 days;

“Incident Reporting

Schedule 3 Section 40 of the project approval referrd to in the Adaptive Management section of Schedule 5 says;