2.1.6 Water management for coal resource developments


Summary

The baseline development for the Galilee subregion contains no active coal mining or coal seam gas (CSG) operations. Only the water management systems for coal mines in the modelled coal resource development pathway (CRDP) are discussed below as there was insufficient information on water management available for the other coal mines and CSG projects in the Galilee subregion CRDP.

As of September 2016 no coal mine projects had commenced operations and because of this there are some data gaps common to all publicly available water management plans. They include: finalisation of sources for external water; external water offtake volumes and off site discharge conditions (e.g. when and where an operation can discharge) and water quality.

Some of the issues related to water management processes for coal mining operations that need to be considered include:

  • water produced through groundwater inflows to mine areas or on-site rainfall
  • diversion of water around the mine areas
  • water required for on-site processes (e.g. coal washing and processing, dust suppression)
  • excess water disposal (if required) in accordance with regulation and project approval conditions
  • water supply from sources external to mine site (if required)
  • clean water supply (e.g. drinking water)
  • water treatment strategies for mine contaminated water
  • separate water storages for water from various sources.

In general, water management plans that consider in detail the aspects mentioned previously are developed when a coal or CSG project reaches an advanced stage (environmental impact statement (EIS) stage) of the approval process. Coal resource projects at that stage are detailed in the modelled coal resource development pathway (modelled CRDP), which is detailed in Section 2.3.4 of companion product 2.3 for the Galilee subregion (Evans et al., 2018). These projects are: Alpha Coal Project, Carmichael Coal Project, China First Coal Project, China Stone Coal Project, Hyde Park Coal Project (although no EIS documentation is available yet), Kevin’s Corner Coal Project and South Galilee Coal Project.

This section provides qualitative detail from water management plans for the coal mine projects included in the Galilee subregion modelled CRDP. Information on external water requirements, changes in mine footprint area with time and expected groundwater inflows are detailed in the following companion products for the Galilee subregion: product 2.5 (water balance assessment) (Karim et al., 2018a), product 2.6.1 (surface water numerical modelling) (Karim et al., 2018b), and product 2.6.2 (groundwater numerical modelling) (Peeters et al., 2018).

As of September 2016 none of these coal mine projects mentioned previously had commenced operations and because of this there are some data gaps common to all publicly available water management plans. These gaps include: finalisation of sources for external water and water offtake volumes, off site discharge conditions (e.g. when and where an operation can discharge) and water quality.

Table 28 outlines some common abbreviations used in describing water management systems in the following sections.

Table 28 Common abbreviations used in water management plans


Abbreviation

Meaning

CHPP

coal handling and preparation plant

MIA

mine infrastructure area

MAW

mine affected water

ROM

run-of-mine

TSF

tailings storage facility

Last updated:
6 December 2018
Thumbnail of the Galilee subregion

Product Finalisation date

2018

ASSESSMENT