The federal government has ruled the Indian mining company Adani does not have to complete a full environmental impact statement for its application to drastically expand a dam and build a pipeline for its Carmichael coalmine.
The project, which Adani calls the north Galilee water scheme, would involve the construction of a 10 billion-litre dam. An existing dam has a capacity of 2.2bn litres.
Adani also wants to build 110km of pipeline to transport water from the Suttor river and Burdekin basin.
The Department of the Environment and Energy has decided the application will require assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act before it can proceed.
However, the department decided not to apply the “water trigger”, a component of the act that mandates coalmining and coal seam gas projects that have significant impact on water resources must undergo more rigorous national environmental assessment.
“The project will be assessed by preliminary documentation,” a formal notice of decision says.
In its application, Adani said it did not believe an environmental impact statement was needed because assessments had been done under previous applications for other parts of the mining project.
Adani argued the water trigger applied only to projects associated with extraction. It said the pipeline was a piece of associated infrastructure and a separate project that therefore did not trigger assessment for impacts on water.
In its application, Adani also said there was potential for its dam and pipeline to supply water for other coalmining projects in the Galilee basin, such as the China Stone coal project.
The Australian Conservation Foundation said the decision amounted to “elected representatives giving preferential treatment to Adani, and highlighted weaknesses in Australian environmental laws.
“As one of the driest continents on earth, water is the lifeblood of inland Australia,” ACF campaigner Christian Slattery said.
“It is disappointing that while Queensland suffers through severe drought, the water infrastructure for Adani’s massive polluting coalmine will avoid full scrutiny under Australia’s national environment laws.”
