Challenging coal mine pollution of Sydney's drinking water
At the end of 2015, 4nature took Centennial Coal as the owners of Springvale coal mine and the NSW government to court to stop them polluting Sydney’s drinking water.
After originally losing the case in the NSW Land and Environment Court, in August 2017, 4nature won on appeal in the NSW Supreme Court.
Before the court determined final orders, the NSW Parliament passed special legislation overturning our win. This allowed Springvale mine to continue to operate and exempting all existing coal mines in Sydney’s drinking water catchments from the strict water quality rules that apply to all other developments.
NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian erroneously told the media that same week that her government, ‘will make sure that the [mine’s] water quality has to be at least as good as what was there before the mine’, while Labor’s opposition leader Luke Foley pledged during the parliamentary debate that the ‘next Labor government will amend the legislation to restore the proper protections’.
Despite the setback, the Springvale mine was still required to build a pipeline and reverse osmosis treatment plant to ensure mine water is clean of its pollutants rather than discharging them into the Coxs River, one of the main sources of Sydney’s drinking water. The treatment plant began operation in June 2019.
This success was short lived. While the processing of polluted mine water in the treatment plant and its use in Mt Piper Power Station meant that pollution of the Coxs River ceased, excess water mixed with untreated mine wastewater was discharged into a nearby holding dam, Thompsons Creek Reservoir. From January 2022, Energy Australia began releasing up to up to 20 million litres a day of excess water into Thompsons Creek and the Sydney Drinking Water. The salinity of this water was near 500 µS/cm, well above the ANZECC guidelines of 350µS/cm for slightly disturbed ecosystems.
In February 2025, 4nature lodged a complaint with the EPA since no pollution licence was in place for this discharge. It demanded that Energy Australia be prosecuted for the damage caused to aquatic systems. 4nature also believed that this discharge was in breach of the Centennial Coal mine and treatment plant approvals which proposed and end to pollution via a ‘zero-discharge’ water management system.
In November 2025, the EPA wrote to 4nature and confirmed that there was insufficient evidence to undertake enforcement action. Despite this, it has recommended that Energy Australia and Centennial Coal incorporate the reservoir discharges into their existing pollution licences.
In January 2026, 4nature commenced legal action in the NSW Land and Environment Court to require the rehabilitation of Centennial Coal’s Angus Place mine. This mine adjacent to Springvale mine is generating up to 13 million litres of polluted water a day, much of which is discharged into the Coxs River when not needed by Mt Piper Power Station. We claim that Centennial’s application to delay rehabilitation, approved by the Independent Planning Commission in October 2025, is invalid.
4nature, as part of the Gardens of Stone Alliance, continues to hold Centennial Coal and all other mines in the Lithgow area accountable for the damage and pollution they are causing and to re-instate the rules protecting Sydney’s drinking water.
