A major petroleum and coal mining company has been spared prosecution for unlawfully using hundreds of millions of litres of water from a river in rural New South Wales during one of the worst droughts in the state’s history.
Japanese energy giant Idemitsu was found to be unlawfully collecting and using the water at its Boggabri Coal Mine in northeastern NSW following an investigation by the state’s water regulator.
Anti-mining collective Lock the Gate Alliance alerted the Natural Resources Access Regulator of the violation in 2021, saying the water should have been diverted around the mine into the local creek system….