Get out to the 'Gambe!

[Allchin09]

Hello,

Earlier this month, in what the EPA has called a major environmental incident, a waste pile at Clarence Colliery near Lithgow collapsed and slid downhill into the Wollangambe River. This river is within the Blue Mountains National Park and very popular with both bushwalkers and canyoners. Here is one news article from the Sydney Morning Herald on the event - http://goo.gl/nT2P7H

A facebook group has been created with the purpose of getting people out to the site to inspect and survey the damage which this spill has caused. If you want to get involved, let me know or visit the group here - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1418903 ... ef=browser

A trip is planned for this weekend, 18-19 July.

What do you think we as bushwalkers can do to help?

[melinda]

This youtube link shows the river and Centennial Coal’s clean up efforts!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGOBXuT ... e=youtu.be
Please take the time to watch all the video!

[Allchin09]

A short tv segment on the spill was aired on Prime7 tonight, showing some of the damage caused.

https://au.prime7.yahoo.com/n3/video/-/ ... -disaster/

[GPSGuided]

Does anyone know what's in that sludge? Fine coal chips or with various chemicals?

[melinda]

Heh GPSGuided,
Think it is coal fines, but who knows.
A friend send me this photo recently.
This is the dam that was behind the coal wall. The liquid goop (as we call it!) breached the wall and flowed down a gully into the headwaters of the Wollongambe.
From what we can figure out the goop is coal and water and who knows what other by products of mining. It looks like oil, but washes off in water.

Dam behind coal wall

[GPSGuided]

Nasty.

[north-north-west]

Yucketty yucks.
Should have the management out there licking 't river clean wi' tongue . . .

[melinda]

Yes north-north-west!!!
We have made many similar suggestions.
Problem is river turns into canyon like sections downstream and it's freezing out there at the moment.
Centennial clearly had no clean up plan, and my understanding is EPA can't figure out how to clean it up either!
And in the meantime ...river continues to ail!

[DaveNoble]

I went out on the inspection on Saturday. We went to two spots - one about 1 km downstream of the pollution entry point into the National Park, and the other about 2.5 kms downstream from that point. In both places the riverbed was covered with thick blank gunk and the water in the river was black. It was terrible! At the downstream inspection point, there was a side creek flowing into the Wollangambe River. The water in that side creek was clear. This demonstrates conclusively that the black coloured water and black sediment is due to the pollution from the mine rather than any residual charcoal from the October 2013 bushfire.

Wollangambe River - black from pollution

WollangambePollutionAug15-1.jpg (157.15 KiB) Viewed 18545 times

It looks like the coal company - Centennial Coal have cleaned up the area near the spill and put in stabilisation controls to prevent further spills, but they don't seem to have cleaned up the pollution in the Wollangambe River.

WollangambePollutionAug15-4.jpg (154.71 KiB) Viewed 18545 times

This pollution is spreading further down the Wollangambe River every day!

Clear water in the side creek meets the polluted water in the Wollangambe River

WollangambePollutionAug15-6.jpg (156.5 KiB) Viewed 18545 times

I have more photos on my blog - http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=8584 as well as links to documents.

[north-north-west]

Gawd, that is revolting! Is there any way to apply pressure to Centennial to get them to clean this up?

[LachlanB]

Wow, that looks awful. At $120,000 a day from early June Centennial must owe almost $4 million by now
Do you think a major flood would remove the fines from the river, or just spread them down the rest of the River and into the Colo and Hawkesbury as well?

[Allchin09]

Well a few months have passed since I've last posted here. Clean up of the river has finally started, but unfortunately it doesn't appear to be very effective, see attached photo.

This weekend I'll be heading out with a group of people to survey the length of the effected area to see how much work has been done, and what the state of things are downstream. If you're an canyoner (lots of river walking and the possibility of a few swims) and you'd be interested in coming along, please let me know.

[pinpakweb]

This is r really awful. Maybe us people can get together and form a group to help each other out - one place at a time.

[Mark F]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-14/clarence-colliery-fined-one-million-for-blue-mountains-spill/8709834

$1.05 million fine plus costs just announced.

[clarence]

Interesting result- probably appropriate.

Even though the company stuffed up, at least they took responsibility for the accident and went to great lengths to fix it- which is a very good response to a bad situation.

When Keith Muir says the result (highest fine ever by EPA) is not enough, it really shows how out of touch and radical such groups are (and why I am no longer a member of Colong Foundation).

Clarence

[rcaffin]

When Keith Muir says the result (highest fine ever by EPA) is not enough, it really shows how out of touch and radical such groups are

Or perhaps how out of touch YOU are. $1M is a rather small fine for such a massive amount of damage.

Cheers
Roger

[clarence]

When Keith Muir says the result (highest fine ever by EPA) is not enough, it really shows how out of touch and radical such groups are

Or perhaps how out of touch YOU are. $1M is a rather small fine for such a massive amount of damage.

Cheers
Roger

Or maybe how out of touch you are....

youtube.com/watch?v=D00M2KZH1J0

Clarence (not associated with the colliery )