Colleen Loveridge writes:
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Perhaps it is time to apply the KISS (“Keep it Simple Stupid”) principle to the current coal mining debate.
Accelerated global warming is a direct result of excessive greenhouse gas emissions.
The burning of fossil fuels (for example, coal) is a major contributor to this imbalance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Coal is stored carbon; keeping it buried will help alleviate global warming.
A significant source of groundwater (underground aquifer) recharge is side-slope runoff; ridge country provides this source.
Gunnedah’s fresh water supply is entirely dependent on groundwater.
A negative impact on the quantity and/or quality of this groundwater could be dire in terms of the town’s future existence.
It is reasonable to assume that proponents of mining are those who have benefitted or may benefit financially either directly or indirectly from mining’s presence in the Namoi Valley.
The irony is that the presence of Shenhua and other mining companies in Gunnedah would be a nonsense had landowners not willingly sold their holdings to these companies in the first instance.
Money speaks – everything has a price.
Moving forward, market forces may well provide the necessary protection of our farmland and groundwater.
All that is needed is a fall in the price of coal to a point where its extraction becomes unviable.