Ultimately WA Environment Minister Bill Marmion has the authority to scrap the project, but the EPA’s recommended level of assessment effectively amounted to a “no to the proposal” in the words of its chairman Paul Vogel back in March.

Project manager LD Operations has appealed this EPA decision, arguing that the process adopted was so “fundamentally flawed that the report cannot be relied upon”

With the appeal process ongoing, ILN asked Moore for updates on the appeal and for his views on the EPA decision at the Mining & Engineering exhibition in Perth on Tuesday.

Moore said he “probably” could not say a lot at the moment.

“I don’t want to be here today to speculate on whether that is a good decision or not, but the important thing is that the company has been able to go through the processes and the decision that has been taken by the EPA is part of the process,” Moore said.

“But I haven’t really had a good hard look yet at the EPA’s decision making, but some people have a view similar to yours that it wasn’t the most rigorous assessment that’s ever been done.”

The EPA’s resistance to the Vasse project not only followed intense community and media campaigning against the project, but also its recommendation against the development of the Coolimba coal mine in the Mid West earlier this year.

The bord and pillar project is about 15 kilometres from the town of Margaret River. The tenement area covers 80 hectares, and mining is also proposed for underneath the river.

The draft mining plan targeted a production rate of 1.2 million tonnes per annum for a mine life of 20 years.

The Vasse project is conservatively estimated to have resources of at least 116Mt, according to data provided by Intierra.

The Vasse project was being advanced by LD Operations on behalf of its private owners, AMCI (70%) and Core Coal Holdings (30%).