Adani’s Australia Mine Faces Fresh Court Challenge Over Water License
The Wire
December 05, 2018
Kabir Agarwal
New Delhi: The Adani Group’s Carmichael coal mine project, which has faced multiple legal and financial obstacles over the last eight years, now faces a fresh court challenge.
On Tuesday, the Australian Conservation Fund (ACF), a non-governmental environmental organisation, announced that it will take the Australian federal government to court over the grant of a water license to the Adani group without an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA).
In March 2017, the Adani group was granted a water license by the Queensland state government. It could use as much as 26 million litres of water a day for a period of sixty years. The groundwater would be extracted through a pipeline from the Great Artesian Basin, which is the only reliablesource of water supply for large parts of northern Australia.
Yet, the Australian Federal government waived the need for a full environment impact assessment for the pipeline in September last year.
“Stand-alone proposals which involve only associated infrastructure, such as pipelines, are not captured by the water trigger because they do not directly involve the extraction of coal,” a spokeswoman for the environment department told the Sydney Morning Herald.
The ‘water trigger’ implies that a more thorough environment impact assessment is necessitated if the impacts of a large coal mine project on water resources is thought to be significant.
“Water is precious on our dry continent, yet Adani wants to take billions of litres of river water every year, nearly as much as all local farmers combined,” ACF chief executive officer Kelly O’Shanassy said.
The ACF will now argue in court that the environment minister erred in not applying the water trigger. “ACF is taking the Federal Government to court over its flawed process for assessing Adani’s plan for a water-guzzling pipeline to service its climate-wrecking coal mine,” O’Shanassy said.
Self-financing a downsized mine
After months of uncertainty, the Adani group last week announced that it will self-finance its Carmichael coal mine project in Australia. The ambitious coal project has attracted stiff opposition in Australia including street protests, political opposition and legal hurdles.
The project has been delayed by eight years in part due to protests and unwillingness of financiers across the world to fund the project. The Adani group has knocked on several doors only to be turned down by all, except the State Bank of India (SBI) which granted a $1 billion loan in 2014 for the ambitious Australia project.
After having tried and failed to raise the additional financing, which was earlier estimated to be around AUD 4.2 billion, the Adani group announced in late November that it will fund the mine on its own.
“We will now begin developing a smaller open cut mine comparable to many other Queensland coal mines and will ramp up production over time to 27.5 mtpa [million tonnes per annum],” said Adani Mining CEO Lucas Dow.
This is not the first time that the Adani group has announced that it will begin the development of the mine. In June 2017, the Adani group gave a ‘green light’ to its own Carmichael coal mine project. In August 2017, Gautam Adani said that construction of the mine will begin in October 2017.
“The pressing of that green button once again might or might not represent something real – it was not a Final Investment Decision, it was another media announcement of an internal decision,” Tim Buckley, director of Energy Finance Studies, Australasia, within the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a pro-renewables energy research firm, told The Wire.
The mine, though, stands significantly downsized. Initially, the company had planned to mine 60 million tonnes of coal a year. Now, it expects to mine 27 million tonnes a year, when the mine reaches peak capacity. It would now need an investment of around AUD 2 billion, according to the company.
Challenges remain
The Adani group still has to face a number of hurdles before it can start mining in Australia. The Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) people who are the traditional owners of parts of the land on which the mine is to be built, continue to oppose the mine. Sections of the W&J have refused to give up their native title rights.
The Queensland state and Australian Federal governments are yet to finalise the environmental management plans that are needed to be in place before the Adani group can begin mining.
The Adani group’s operations in Australia are also the subject of a Federal investigation into its use of groundwater. An environmental group has alleged, using aerial footage, that the company has dug water bores without necessary approvals.
Recently, representatives of a number of environmental groups met with the Queensland Environment Minister with petitions seeking an assurance that the Adani group will be investigated.
“Collectively close to 100 000 Australians have signed these petitions. Evidence has emerged that Adani has commenced work on the sites without the necessary approvals – dropping dewatering bores and clearing land,” Ellen Roberts of GetUp, who was part of the meeting told The Wire.
“The Minister stated that the investigation into Adani is continuing, but refused to disclose timeframes. She confirmed that Adani does not have approval to commence work on the mine, as the Department is still considering their Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem Management Plan,” Roberts added.
The Wire has sent a questionnaire to the Adani group and this story will be updated if and when a response is received.
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