Coal mining in Sydney's water catchment could prove an early test for new Premier Gladys Berejiklian, with one miner seeking eased conditions to dump waste in the Coxs River and another lodging plans to dig coal out to 2048.
Centennial Coal has applied to the Planning Department to remove a requirement on its Springvale project near Lithgow to reduce the salinity of discharges it dumps into the Coxs River.
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It is also seeking to delay for two years until mid-2019 an order to "eliminate acute and chronic toxicity" from those discharges.The Coxs flows through the Blue Mountains World Heritage area and is the second-largest supply of water to Sydney's main dam at Warragamba.
Separately, South32, a coal miner which recently had its operations curtailed for its latest longwall expansion, has applied to state and federal authorities to develop two large underground sections of its Dendrobium mine near the Cordeaux and Avon reservoirs that supply the Illawarra.
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"This will be a crucial test whether the new premier is fair dinkum about having a balanced and sustainable mining industry," Adam Searle, Labor's mining spokesman, said.
"The failure ... to maintain appropriate levels of protection for water would amount to a complete sell-out of the community's interests."
Planning officials directed Fairfax Media questions to Premier Berejiklian's spokesman. He did not return calls for comment.
Mining could offer early challenges for the new government. New Planning Minister Anthony Roberts was previously in charge of resources and was a keen backer of coal and coal-seam gas projects.
The mines "grow, they expand, they have their conditions changed", Georgina Woods, a campaigner for Lock The Gate, said.
"The more mining there is, the more swamps are lost," Ms Woods said. "We do need the government as a whole to make the Special Areas an exclusion zone" for new mines.
Centennial Coal defended its request to weaken conditions imposed on it when it got approval to continue its operations, saying it needed time to build a water treatment plant.
"It is a complex project that requires thorough design, planning approval, procurement and construction which cannot be achieved in the 18 months since Springvale was granted approval in late 2015," Katie Brassil, Centennial spokeswoman, said. "We are planning to complete this project by mid-2019."
Ms Woods, though, said Centennial had known for years it had to stop dumping highly saline water into the Coxs, "and to plead for time now is disingenuous".
South32, spun off from BHP Billiton, said the application to expand the Dendrobium mine would "ensure the long-term viability of our operations, continued employment for hundreds of people, and ongoing supply of metallurgical coal to our customers". (See chart below of Area 5 and 6 expansion area sought.)
The miner proposes to avoid mining beneath swamp areas in its lease area. It would also position longwalls "away from key sections of large, permanently flowing streams", a spokeswoman said.
Peter Turner, mining projects officer for the NSW National Parks Association, said Dendrobium was already "the most aggressive and damaging miner" in the catchment, and its own monitoring data point to a poor environmental record.
"The damage to swamps, streams, landscape, habitats, ecosystems and water supply caused by the Dendrobium mine is already unacceptable," Dr Turner said. "Proposing more of the same would demonstrate a remarkable disregard for Sydney's water supply and the internationally important biodiversity of the Special Areas."