Abbot Point: Indian mining firm's environment record under scrutiny

The government is assessing the suitability of Adani Group to build Australia’s largest mine and coal port at Abbot Point after it was revealed the company is facing multi-million dollar fines in India for damage allegedly inflicted on the environment. The Department of Environment has requested to view damning documents which state there is “incontrovertible evidence” that Adani Group has violated environmental conditions in relation to a port development in Gujarat. The report also states that the port development has caused "massive ecological changes with adverse impacts", some in violation of environmental conditions. The assessment, conducted by a panel appointed by the Indian government and handed to the country’s Ministry of Environment and Forests, investigated a catalogue of alleged breaches committed by Adani Group at the Mundra port. Significantly, given concerns raised by Australian farmers over the impact of mining on groundwater quality, the panel found Adani Group had “failed to fulfill” precautions to monitor salinity intrusion into the water table. “This is a clear violation and shows non-compliance with the environment clearance conditions,” the report states. “The environmental clearance conditions stipulate that the company must monitor groundwater regularly for salinity and pollution. But it has failed to do so.” The report found Adani Group had made “an attempt to bypass the statutory procedures” to obtain clearances for the port project, including the construction of an airstrip without an environmental clearance. The report also found violations including the blocking of creeks and destruction of mangrove ecosystems. In addition, the report suggested Adani Group may have improperly disposed of fly ash, which would lead to localised pollution. It stated: “It is clear that the company has been less than serious about reporting on compliance with the conditions set at the time of clearance. In many cases non-compliance with reporting conditions have been observed.” The panel concludes that the development is already too far advanced at Mundra for a revocation of Adani Group’s approval to be practical. However, it recommends that Adani Group pay $33m into a conservation restoration fund. Adani Group, headed by the Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, is attempting to expand the Abbot Point coal port near the Queensland town of Bowen to ship coal from its planned Carmichael mine. The massive Carmichael project would be the largest mine in Australia, covering a 52,348 ha site in central Queensland to extract 60m tonnes of coal a year. At capacity, it will emit an estimated 128m tonnes of carbon dioxide – more than the combined annual emissions of Sweden and Portugal, according to Greenpeace. If approved, the coal would be transported, on a railway line to be built by Adani Group, to Abbot Point. Greg Hunt, the federal environment minister, will decide whether to allow the dredging of three million cubic metres of seabed by Adani Group to radically expand Abbot Point. A spokesman for his department told Guardian Australia: “In accordance with national environment law, the minister may consider whether a company is suitable to be granted an approval having regard to their environmental history.” The spokesman said the department had already reviewed “a number of non-compliant ratings” in a report on Adani Group’s preliminary work on the Abbot point project, but had found these to be administrative in nature. The report indicates Adani Group’s contractors had failed to meet environmental conditions nine times when building a stormwater return dam, but Adani Group considered the actual impact of the non-compliances to be negligible. In a submission to the government, Greenpeace said it was “very concerned at the poor quality” of Adani Group’s environmental impact statement for the Carmichael mine. The activist group said there would be significant impact on wildlife including koalas and said there was an “unacceptable” lack of analysis on groundwater availability. Adam Walters, a Greenpeace spokesman, told Guardian Australia that Adani Group’s record in Mundra was “horrendous”. “The Great Barrier Reef is a world heritage area and we are about to place it in the hands of a company that hasn’t behaved responsibly in India,” he said. “We have great concern that this development will go ahead, given that Adani Group has breached environmental regulations on many occasions. “Adani Group has been accused of all sorts of breaches which [Queensland premier] Campbell Newman is well aware of as he visited Mundra last year. The Queensland government is taking an already open door off its hinges to develop the Galilee Basin, which means the quality of companies allowed to mine there is atrocious. “The federal government has a responsibility to protect one of the world’s great natural assets from development. Its willingness to do this will be very clear in the next few weeks, when we see if Abbot Point will be expanded to become one of the largest coal ports in the world.” Adani Group has been contacted for comment.