Story by Kate McIlwain in the Illawarra Mercury, 25 November 2024.

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.

Wollongong Greens councillor Cath Blakey said there was a "big risk" that the community would have to pay for the eventual remediation of Russell Vale mine.

Story by Connor Pearce in the Illawarra Mercury, 9 February 2024.

The decision to appoint miner South32 as the naming rights sponsor of September’s Ride Wollongong festival has shocked the climate-conscious cycling community.

“The event’s a great idea. But I don’t want to go to it now, unless it’s part of an action to oppose the sponsorship,” says local cycling advocate Jess Whittaker.

“We’re in a climate emergency. I can’t look my kids in the eye and say, ‘We’re going to this cycling event – it’s paid for by a coal mine. And by the way, they’re burning your future and stuffing the water catchment.”

Ms Whittaker, a Port Kembla health care worker who ran as the Greens lead candidate in Ward 3 at the last Wollongong City Council election in December 2021, said: “You don’t have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on a community event. The council should just be funding that.”

Despite being a keen cyclist, Ms Whittaker won’t be attending this month’s South32 Ride Wollongong festival.

“I just can’t do it. It was the same feeling I got at UCI when they were handing out all those yellow hats with South32 logos and I just felt so embarrassed. All these people come over from Europe and we’re in a climate emergency and here’s good old Wollongong handing out the hats for the coal mine.

“I actually took a hat home and embroidered ‘end coal’ on it and then wore it back the next day.”

Story by Genevieve Swart in The Illawarra Flame, 1 September 2023. (pdf download, archive)

The NSW Greens will push the new Labor government to start a transition plan to close a major coal mine in the northern Illawarra that has been operating since 1887.

Greens environment spokeswoman Sue Higginson said the Peabody-owned Metropolitan Mine at Helensburgh could not manage its pollution in line with community expectations in terms of environmental controls.

"What we know is this mine is old, it's dirty, it's in the wrong place," she said.

The spill also delayed plans to re-introduce platypuses into the Royal National Park and resulted in the EPA upgrading the mine's licence with a "variation".

The variation requires Peabody to "conduct a detailed analysis of potential pollutants and contaminants that could discharge into the waterways".

"Testing will need to be conducted for a range of potential pollutants including metals, nutrients, pH, turbidity, and electrical conductivity," an EPA statement said.

But Ms Higginson said the measures were not good enough and Labor needed to formulate a plan to close the mine.

"We will absolutely be working with the community to push this Labor government to face the music that we are hearing right now and to get a plan on the table and start to work on the shutdown of this mine," she said.

Story by Nick McLaren at ABC Illawarra, 27 March 2023.

from ABC Illawarra Mornings with Nick Rheinberger, 23 March 2023.

The young Greens candidate has brought props, and hands around an old jam jar containing dirty, sludgy water, which he says was collected near Camp Gully Creek in September last year.

A concerned mumble washes around the hall.

Those listening are well aware the near-by Metropolitan mine owned by Peabody at Helensburgh received a clean-up order from the Environment Protection Authority, over two discharges of polluted water containing coal particles in July and September of last year.

Story by Kelly Fuller at ABC Illawarra, 2 March 2023.

"It is my strong view that there should not be a coal mine next to the Royal National Park, the second-oldest national park in the world and such a beautiful protected area."

"This mine should be closed as soon as possible and a plan put in place to phase out all coal and gas."

"We need to have a plan for actually transitioning into new sustainable jobs. It's something that will need to happen. It's something that neither the major parties are willing to acknowledge."

Cooper Riach, Greens candidate for Heathcote.

Read more in the Illawarra Mercury, 24 January 2023.