There have been more than half a dozen inquiries and reports into the damage from coal mining under Sydney’s drinking water catchment.
With record low flows of water into our dams and an unknown quantity of water from Sydney’s creeks and rivers being lost between the cracks and leaking into the mines it’s time to stop inquiring and start acting!
I call on the Committee to recommend an urgent, immediate moratorium on any further coal mining under Sydney’s precious drinking water.
The time for inquiry is long past, and despite all the reports and studies, we still don’t know how much of Sydney’s drinking water is leaking into the coal mines under the catchment.
What we do know from experience in the US is that drinking water is being contaminated, aquifers depleted and the viabilty to sustain future generations is being jeapardised.