Adani loses billions of litres of water in Federal Court decision
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Environmentalists are celebrating after the Federal Court rejected a decision that granted Adani approval to access billions of litres of water for its Carmichael coal mine in Queensland.
But Adani, which has rebranded itself Bravus, insisted the decision would not impact the operation of its mine, in the Galilee Basin.
Equipment arrives to remove the overburden from Adani’s Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland in July 2020.
Credit:Cameron Laird
It comes as Queensland authorities confirmed they were investigating allegations of environmental breaches at the Adani coal mine and rail project.
A delegate for the federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, had previously justified a decision not to apply the water trigger on the basis that the specific proposal â whose purpose was to supply water to the Carmichael mine â was not itself a coalmining development.
The federal court decision says that reasoning is in error.
Adani said its activities â including the ongoing construction of the mine and its future operation â will not be impacted by the decision. Concerns have previously been raised about whether it has sufficient supplies to support water-intensive construction and mining activities without access to the North Galilee Water Scheme.
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The federal environment department wrongly skipped a key assessment when approving a water pipeline for Adani s massive Carmichael coal mine, a court has ruled.
The North Galilee Water Scheme would extend a dam and pump water 110 kilometres to the coal mine in central Queensland, to suppress dust and wash coal.
A department official in 2019 decided the project wasn t a coal mining activity or involving a large coal mining development.
Deeming it so would have mandated an assessment of whether the pipeline and other infrastructure had or was likely to have a significant impact on water resources.
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