When the Hazelwood mine closed in 2017, it left a huge void, which ENGIE now plans to fill with water to make a pit lake. Friends of the Gippsland Lakes supports a safe, stable closure that ends the fire risk. Our concern is where that water comes from.
The plan would take 20 to 30 billion litres a year from Moondarra Reservoir on the Tyers River, for about 9 to 16 years, or around 35 years if dry climate projections are realised. The Tyers flows into the Latrobe, which supplies more than half of Lake Wellington’s fresh water. That water flushes the lake, fills its wetlands and cues native fish to migrate and spawn.
And Hazelwood is one of three mines. West Gippsland CMA estimates that the three Latrobe Valley voids together need about 2,200 billion litres to fill: roughly four Sydney Harbours, or four and a half times the Latrobe’s average annual flow.
The State already has rules for using river water to fill these mines: the take is capped, cut back in drought and has an end date. Hazelwood’s take has none of them. The Environment Effects Statement also assessed the downstream effects of only the last 10 billion litres of each year’s take.
So we’ve asked the Inquiry and Advisory Committee to:
- apply the rules the State set for Loy Yang;
- assess the take in full, together with the other two mines and a drier climate; and
- protect the Gippsland Lakes Ramsar site, which our analysis of 36 years of EPA records shows is already growing saltier, even allowing for wet and dry years.
The Directions Hearing is on 26 November. Follow our updates, and share this post with everyone who loves the Lakes.
📄 Read our Submission in brief [link] and the Supporting evidence [link].
Photos of Hazelwood mine courtesy of Environment Victoria