Yesterday, Land Court president Carmel MacDonald recommended mining leases 50229, 50230 and 50231 be granted over the application area.

However, the recommendation was subject to Xstrata undertaking rigorous groundwater monitoring and making mutually sustainable arrangements with landowners who would be potentially affected by adverse impacts on the availability and quality of groundwater as a result of the mining operations.

The recommendation followed a Land and Environment Court hearing in August in which eight landowners and Friends of the Earth Australia opposed the project on the grounds it could contribute to climate change.

In addition, the opponents objected to the mine “based on their concerns as to the size of the proposed mine and the impact of the proposed mine on their general amenity and the productive use of their land”

In handing down the recommendation, MacDonald said FoE’s evidence was not substantial.

“Most of the evidence led by the FoE centred on [greenhouse-gas] emissions from the use of the coal in power stations,” MacDonald wrote.

“In my view, this evidence is irrelevant to the court's task under the [Environmental Protection Act].”

The evidence presented established the project’s scope 1 and 2 emissions would contribute to climate change.

“The FoE contends that this issue should outweigh all other factors to be taken into account in the assessment of the project and that this should lead to a recommendation that the environmental authority be refused,” MacDonald detailed.

“I do not accept this submission.

“Stopping the project will not result in any, or any substantial, difference in the levels of GHGs in the atmosphere.”

The proposed mining lease application area covers approximately 32,000 hectares.

The Wandoan open cut mine has the potential to produce 22Mt of saleable thermal coal which would either be exported around the world or sold to the domestic market.

The final approval for the granting of the mining lease applications will now be determined by the Queensland mining minister.

The Land Court’s decision passes final responsibility for the project’s approval to the newly elected LNP state government.

The Wandoan coal project received conditional environmental approval from the Queensland coordinator general under the State Development and Public Works Organisation Act in November 2010.

It subsequently received conditional environmental approval from the Commonwealth government in March 2011.

Xstrata Coal chief operating officer Reinhold Schmidt said the court’s recommendation reflected the company’s rigorous environmental assessment and review process it had conducted at Wandoan.

“Today’s recommendation recognises our ongoing commitment to environmental management and our willingness to listen to and accommodate individual landholder needs,” he said.

“We listened to landholders and the community group’s objections which ranged from the impacts of mining, greenhouse gas emissions associated with the mining and subsequent burning of the coal, road access to landholder properties, effects on cattle and groundwater impacts.”

The Wandoan project is a joint venture between Xstrata (75%) and its Japanese partners Itochu (12.5%) and Sumitomo (12.5%) but the companies are investigating options for introducing an additional partner to take a stake in the project.

Xstrata managing director Mick Davis previously referred to the Wandoan project as a world-class development and a growth engine for the company which could be in production by 2015.