Coal – a dirty business

Did you see last night’s Four Corners episode, A Dirty Business, about coal mining in the Hunter Valley? If you missed it, it’s well worth chasing it up on their website or watching it on ABC’s iView.

It was about the terrible health problems faced by people in the Hunter Valley who have gradually had coal mines surround their towns. Doctors have noticed that respiratory disease in the area is well above average, as are cancer rates (this has been in the news too). People have taken to using their own air quality monitors because they don’t trust the mining companies to stay within legal limits of pollution.

They can’t move away – their homes are often their only asset, and who would want to buy it from them with a giant dusty mine over the back fence? They’re dairy farmers and rural workers, they can’t just drop everything and run off to the city.

The video of how huge the mine sites are is really amazing. It’s an enormous area, completely dug up and scarred. When they showed an aerial map, you could clearly see where the mining permits end because that’s where the trees and green land start.

And nearby Newcastle is the world’s biggest coal port. Hundreds of ships (the same type as are crashing on the Great Barrier Reef) are lined up along the coast waiting for their turn to ship the coal off around Australia or overseas.

It all makes me so angry. This is the real reason the Rudd government hasn’t done anything about climate change: the coal industry has it wrapped around their little finger. And as long as there’s a buck to be made, the NSW government will allow miners and farmers and kids to die from the pollution.