MANGOOLA mine's extended lifespan is unlikely to be the only thing elongated by Monday's approval.
The Anvil Hill mine, outside Muswellbrook, will grow and run for another 13 months under the plan to unearth more than 50 million more tonnes beyond its original permissions.
Against the backdrop of an increasingly polarised energy debate and the impending pressures of climate change action stoked by natural disasters in recent years, the decision was always going to be one that reverberated. Critics including Muswellbrook Shire Council seized upon several aspects of the proposal, notably that the assessment of one mine failed to take into account the cumulative effect of extraction on those who live in the upper Hunter area. Those effects were relayed repeatedly to the Independent Planning Commission during hearings earlier this year in which a number of residents called for a turning point in coal mining in the area. Veterinarian Dr Catherine Chicken in March pointed to air quality decline over recent years in opposing the proposal.
"Suffice to say the cumulative impacts are clear for all of us who are living here to see, smell and sometimes even taste," she said.
Those pleas were matched with a number of written submissions praising the economics of the mine and what its approval could bring to the community.
Those who work at the mine would be understandably pleased that their positions appear safer for longer after Monday's decision. Indeed, it is doubtful that anyone would take pleasure in the loss of jobs had the decision gone another way. The point, rather, is that critics argue now is the time to act and pivot an area pocked by open-cut mines toward an industry that offers greater longevity through sustainability.
The IPC ruling, which of course was concerned only with the particular merits of the Mangoola expansion bid itself, had in the eyes of coal's opponents and exasperated residents perhaps offered an opportunity to bring forth such a pivot.
What is clear is that this will not be the final front in the battle over coal. One of the next is almost certainly the Upper Hunter state byelection in May, given how salient coal has been in that contest. Wherever the next flashpoint is, the strength of feeling on both sides makes one thing very clear: the future of coal and Hunter mining (and miners) is a fight that is far from over.
