My yarn on the 50-year extension of the Anglesea coal mine that didn’t make the paper this morning.

THE STATE Government has stitched up a deal with Alcoa to extend coal mining in the ecologically rich Anglesea heathland for the next 50 years.
The new deal limits the expansion of mining to a further three per cent of Alcoa’s current 7145 hectare lease, giving the company an extra 246 hectares of the Anglesea heath to expand into on top of the 419 hectares currently mined.
Alcoa will also be required to have a mine work plan approved by the State Government for the expansion and pay a $13.9 million bond for rehabilitation of the site.
The mine supplies the Anglesea brown coal power plant which generates about 40 per cent of the energy for Alcoa’s nearby Port Henry aluminium smelter.
State Energy and Resources Minister Michael O’Brien said “this revised agreement is a win-win which supports the local economy, strengthens environmental processes and conserves more of the Anglesea heath.”
But green groups were scathing of the decision with Victorian National Parks Association chief executive Matt Ruchel saying ‘‘this decision allows for a 59 per cent increase of the mine which we think is too much for such an incredibly botanically rich area.’’
Mr Ruchel said the heathland supported 700 different plants types, including a third of all Victoria’s orchids, with 21 species rare or threatened. He called for the heath to be immediately made part of the adjourning Otway National Park.
Currently the heathland under Alcoa’s mining lease is jointly managed by the company, the Department of Sustainability and Environment and Parks Victoria.
Geelong Environment Council’s Joan Lindros said the deal had given Alcoa everything it had wanted, adding it was a ‘‘joke’’ an open cut mine existed right next to the iconic Great Ocean Road.
She said Alcoa should have been required or helped to find alternative energy sources for its smelter after 2015 rather than a continuing reliance on brown coal power.
Under the original 1961 agreement between Alcoa and the State Government the company was entitled to seek a further 50-year extension to its mining operations after the first 50-years of the deal was up. The company has been negotiating with state governments since 2008 to redefine the agreement before it was extended.
The company’s general manager of Victorian operations John Osborne said yesterday “our mine and power station at Anglesea remain the most secure and cost competitive power source available to Alcoa in Victoria at this time,”
The company says the smelter, mine and power station provides 1,100 jobs to the region. The mine and the power plant provide 85 of those jobs.
The Anglesea power plant emitted 1.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2009, a little over 1 per cent of the state’s emissions.

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