The only way to avoid lighting the fuse of the Galilee Basin carbon bomb and protect Queensland’s precious groundwater for the environment and farming communities is to stop the Adani coal mine from going ahead.
In response to the news that Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has asked the state Coordinator-General to fast-track the approval process for Adani’s Carmichael coal mine, Basha Stasak, the Nature Program Manager at the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), said:
“There remain some very big, unanswered questions about Adani’s proposed water use.
“There is evidence scientists at CSIRO were pushed to accept the Federal Government’s approval of Adani’s water plans in a single afternoon in early April.
“The Queensland Government should not cave in to pressure from Adani and the coal industry.
“If Adani’s mine goes ahead it will lock in the burning of Galilee Basin coal for decades to come.
“Regardless of which party won the federal election, the world still has a climate change problem and Australia must stop putting fuel on the fire.
“The only way to avoid lighting the fuse of the Galilee Basin carbon bomb and protect Queensland’s precious groundwater for the environment and farming communities is to stop the Adani coal mine from going ahead,” she said.
Among other plans, Adani hopes to take up to 12.5 billion litres of water – 5000 Olympic-sized swimming pools – from the Suttor River in central Queensland, a river that floods and dries up at different times and on which farmers and wetlands rely.
In an ongoing Federal Court case ACF is challenging the Federal Environment Minister’s failure to apply the water trigger to Adani’s proposed water pipeline project.
