Forests NSW is being forced to review its logging practices, after the discovery of a spate of new breaches including logging old-growth rainforests and destroying the habitat of threatened native animals.

The latest damage, at Girard State Forest near Tenterfield, is the fifth time in five months that the state agency has come under investigation.

The NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, which oversees environmental protection licences, is conducting a joint audit with the agency of logging in the region.

The review will examine the regulations under which contractors are employed by Forests NSW, and rules protecting native wildlife, young trees and trees surrounding waterways.

The department has already handed out four penalty notices to the agency this year for breaking logging rules in the nearby Yabbra State Forest. (Read on …)

Aditya Birla Minerals Ltd’s Mount Gordon copper mine in northwest Queensland has been charged for failing to meet its environmental obligations.

The Queensland government has charged the mine with 19 offences, including one count of failing to improve on site water management and 18 counts of failing to comply with the Environmental Authority and to decrease the risk of environmental harm.

Department of Environment and Resource Management’s acting Director of Litigation Reuben Carlos said Aditya Birla had allegedly failed to meet those requirements within set timeframes. (Read on …)

A Central Queensland man who was contracted to clear endangered remnant vegetation on his neighbour’s property was fined $20,000 yesterday in the Rockhampton Magistrates Court.

Donald Charles Edmistone pleaded guilty before Magistrate John McGrath to clearing native vegetation on a property known as “Orange Grove” at Dingo, 150km west of Rockhampton. No conviction was recorded.

The $20,000 penalty is the biggest fine handed to a contractor (non land owner) under the Integrated Planning Act 1997 and Sustainable Planning Act 2009 for a vegetation clearing offence. (Read on …)

A torn pipe that sent a plume of caustic fumes over an area of up to 6km stripping paint from cars has landed the company responsible a fine of $90,000.

Queensland Alumina Ltd was also ordered to pay $20,000 in investigation costs after pleading guilty in the Gladstone Magistrates Court today before Magistrate Damien Carroll to unlawfully causing serious environmental harm. (Read on …)

A confidential submission released accidentally by the federal government shows the owners of the heavy-polluting Hazelwood brown coal power plant will resist energy efficiency efforts because they could hit their bottom line.

International Power’s submission to a taskforce developing an energy efficiency policy also states that energy efficiency is only about power use, not energy production.

”International Power rejects any proposal to introduce climate change policy under the guise of energy efficiency measures, which has the potential to destroy the value of existing investments in the generator sector,” the submission says.

International Power’s assets include Victorian brown coal power plants Hazelwood and Loy Yang B, both among the highest carbon-emitting plants in the developed world. (Read on …)

In brief:

• In November 2009, the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management released its Annual Compliance Plan.
• The Plan nominates mine water management and financial assurances as two key areas of focus.
• Coupled with prosecution proceedings that have recently commenced against five Queensland mines, this shows that the mining industry has entered a period of increased regulatory scrutiny.

The Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) recently released its Annual Compliance Plan 2009-2010. The Plan identifies priority compliance activities that will be targeted over its 12-month implementation period. (Read on …)