Serious failures by Indian conglomerate Adani to identify the location of source aquifers for ancient Great Artesian Basin springs have been uncovered in the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia reports, released this week, to support a last minute approval of the controversial Carmichael coalmine by the conservative Liberal-National government.
Despite the concerns, federal Environment Minister Melissa Price approved Adani’s Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Management Plan just a day before the Prime Minister called a federal election.
The groundwater studies by the CSIRO reveal the modelling used by consultants ahead of the federal government’s decision to approve the Adani mine “was not suitable to ensure the outcomes” needed to meet Australia’s environmental legislation.
The north Queensland mine has been approved by the federal government with 36 conditions.
Adani must satisfy three final issues to both the federal government and the Queensland state Labor government before the mine goes ahead.
“A number of limitations were also identified in the proposed monitoring and management approaches indicating they are not sufficiently robust to monitor and minimise impacts to protected environments,” the CSIRO’s February 2019 groundwater studies found.
AAP Newsagency reports RMIT University hydrology expert Dr Matthew Currell said, “Adani is yet to conduct the detailed science required to identify the springs’ source aquifer and its monitoring plans risk potentially missing impacts that cause irreversible damage to them.
“Possible impacts include drying up of spring wetlands and reduced flows of groundwater to spring vents and pools, which could lead to irreversible ecological and cultural damage.
“The CSIRO review identified significant shortcomings with Adani’s groundwater model, including that it underestimates the drawdown on the springs and the Carmichael River, and it is very unclear what Adani is going to do in response.
“Given the extraordinary ecological significance of the springs and the risk of irreversible impacts, all relevant information should be released by the Federal Government now for independent scientific review.”
Spokesperson Carmel Flint for Lock the Gate Alliance, which opposes the mine, said: “Adani’s federal approval effectively requires them to restrict drawdown in the Doongmabulla Springs to 20cm.
“However, in Appendix B of the report, CSIRO states that if hydraulic conductivity values in the groundwater model are adjusted to better reflect expected values, then ‘the drawdown at the springs would be greater than 0.2m’.
“Therefore, the CSIRO report foreshadows very strongly that the key restraint contained in the approval to protect the Great Artesian Basin Springs cannot be met.”
Ms Flint said, as a result, the rushed decision prior to the election was clearly based on political considerations, not on science.
“We’d like to see the federal Labor party commit to review all of Adani’s environmental approvals thoroughly if it is elected to government, in light of the appalling political interference by LNP politicians that has dogged this water plan,” she said.
ABC News reports Adani’s key water management plan for its coal mine in Queensland was so flawed its outcomes were unreliable, scientists from the CSIRO warned Ms Price’s department.
ABC News reports they were scathing about the modelling that underpinned the entire plan, which, they said, was replete with errors and false assumptions.
“The modelling used is not suitable to ensure the outcomes sought by the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Protection Act are met,” the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia stated bluntly in a joint report.
Adani’s approach was “not sufficiently robust to monitor and minimise impacts to protected environments”.
Specifically, it “questions the accuracy of the 0.19m predicted drawdown at the Doongmabulla Springs complex (DSC) by the SEIS model”.
This information can be read on the Department of the Environment and Energy’s website here.
After February 29, the department met with Adani staff to establish a regime of extra testing, with CSIRO writing a letter clarifying its support on April 5.
The letter, from CSIRO director Land and Water, Jane Coram, notes some issues “still need to be addressed”.
“CSIRO is of the view that Adani’s responses should satisfy the recommendations to update the groundwater models and are directed to address the modelling-related issues and concerns raised in our advice, noting that there are still components of that advice that will need to be addressed.”
Adani Mining chief executive Lucas Dow welcomed the Liberal-National government’s decision to approve Adani’s groundwater management plan, while environmentalists and the Australian Greens Party have been appalled.
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