NSW activists ‘delighted’ as high court rejects Kepco’s coalmine in Bylong Valley

Environmental advocates tell South Korean miner to ‘pack its bags’ as company considers next steps

The mining company Kepco has failed in its final legal bid to challenge a decision to reject its plans for an open-cut coalmine in the New South Wales Bylong Valley.

Environmentalists and members of the Bylong Valley community are now calling on the South Korean company to walk away and sell its land back to farming families rather than submitting a revised development proposal for the project.

The high court on Thursday declined to hear Kepco’s appeal that sought to challenge the NSW Independent Planning Commission’s (IPC) decision in 2019 to reject its development application.

The commission refused development approval for the greenfield coalmine, citing the unacceptable impact the mine would have on agricultural land and the environment – including through greenhouse gas emissions – and the costs to future generations.

Its decision was subsequently upheld by the NSW land and environment court and the court of appeal.

The high court’s decision exhausts the company’s final legal avenue for the project in its current form and brings to an end a lengthy battle for Bylong Valley community members who have fought the project for years.

“KEPCO needs to eat some humble pie, pack its bags, and leave,” said Phillip Kennedy, the president of the Bylong Valley Protection Alliance.

“KEPCO must not submit a revised project, it must not delay, it must only sell its land back to the farming families of Australia and leave the Bylong Valley for good.

“The Bylong Valley community only wants some certainty, and we’re looking forward to that with this win.”

The Bylong Valley Protection Alliance had joined as a party to the original judicial review to defend the IPC’s ruling after the commission itself declined to take an active role in proceedings.

The alliance’s legal representative, the Environmental Defenders Office, said the high court made its decision based on written submissions, without the need for a hearing.

“We could not be more delighted for our clients, the Bylong Valley Protection Alliance, who have dedicated years of their lives to challenging this destructive and inappropriate coal mine proposal,” managing lawyer Rana Koroglu said.

“The IPC’s decision to refuse this mine was sound. It was based on the evidence and the science, including evidence about the ‘problematical’ greenhouse gas emissions.”

Koroglu said the project would have generated more than 200m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

She said the commission’s decision had been tested to its limits through the courts and in every appeal had been upheld.

“It means the IPC can be assured that an evidence-based decision to reject these kinds of destructive fossil fuel projects in the future is legally supported.”

A spokesperson for Kepco said the company was “disappointed with the high court’s decision to dismiss the special leave application”.

“KEPCO will now take some time to consider its next steps,” they said

cover photo: The high court has rejected Kepco’s appeal to build an open-cut coalmine in NSW’s Bylong Valley. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP