PAC made 25 recommendations as part of its review of the project but said the proposed mine was potentially approvable.

While groundwater fears are largely resolved, Shenhua believes some of the goal posts have shifted.

“The company has major reservations about the recommendations regarding the noise and air quality criteria, which are without precedent in NSW and far exceed those recommended in the Department of Planning’s preliminary assessment of the project,” Shenhua Watermark project manager Paul Jackson said.

“Shenhua accepts it will need to acquire additional land adjacent to our operations and where people’s homes are within our zone of affectation for noise and air quality as determined by government policy and reflected in past practice.

“However, we cannot accept the acquisition criteria adopted by the PAC which requires us to potentially acquire additional properties, located well beyond the project boundary and which would not need to be acquired under the government’s ongoing acquisition criteria.

“This new threshold is at odds with the PAC report which confirms there will be no significant impact on agriculture from the project and no impacts on cotton or other crops from air quality issues.

“In 2009, at the outset of this project, Shenhua deliberately altered the Watermark mine plan to avoid the black soil plains and minimise our ownership of prime agricultural land.

“Our extensive and ongoing efforts to minimise the impact on farming will be wasted and undone with the stroke of a pen as a result of the PAC recommendations.

“We should not be forced to acquire swathes of prime agricultural land.”

The $850 million Watermark open cut project is targeting up to 10 million tonnes per annum run of mine over 30 years with about 84% of the saleable coal to be of a metallurgical grade.

PAC wants the coal company to exclude some land of the designated mining areas of the project.