Wollongong Greens councillor Cath Blakey said the EPA needed to better monitor mining operations to protect the drinking water catchment. "The community wants to see the Illawarra escarpment and our drinking water catchment protected, and currently the EPA regulation is failing to do that," Cr Blakey said.

"So often it has come down to residents and volunteers raising the alarm, document creek pollution and collect water samples and send them off for independent testing.

"Too often mines are being approved with conditions that are not enforced or adhered to.

"Despite numerous end-of-panel reports that document seam to surface cracking, far beyond the mine subsidence forecast during the initial proposal assessment, the government has failed to halt longwall mining that damages the drinking water catchment of five million people."

Deidre Stuart, a member of the Protect Our Water Catchment group and Greens Wollongong City Council candidate, said laws were not applied equally. "If I park my car in the wrong place at the wrong time I am likely to get a parking ticket and fined," she said.

"If I am an indigenous person in this country then I might well also end up in prison for failure to pay a parking fine, and then dead.

"But if I am a coal company with friends in high places and with lots of money in my pocket, then it seems I can get away with making a mess and polluting our atmosphere with unabated methane for 30-plus years, and face no consequences."

Story by Ben Langford in the Illawarra Mercury, 22 August 2024.