Muswellbrook couple share long history of living with noise from Mangoola mine

JULIE, Peter and June Brown are victims of the catch 22 of mine noise testing – the weather conditions that exacerbate mine noise also rule out the measurements that indicate a problem.

In one 2013 report that Mangoola mine has relied on to say it complies with its licence conditions, 95 out of 96 measurements were rejected because of weather conditions, including temperature inversions at night where temperatures are colder at ground level than higher up.

Many of those measurements showed non-compliance with Mangoola’s licence, said Victorian acoustics expert Les Huson in a report after assessing a number of reports commissioned by the mine because of complaints from the Browns.

Yet in one of its own reports to the Department of Planning in 2010 to support another modification to the mine, Mangoola conceded ‘‘noise impacts are greatest under strong temperature inversions’’, but rejected the idea of restricting or stopping night-time operations because the area experienced so many temperature inversions.

‘‘Investigation of the occurrence of temperature inversions at Mangoola Coal showed a very high frequency of such strong temperature inversions,’’ Mangoola’s environmental assessment report said.

Its investigations showed temperature inversions occurred on 42.8 per cent of summer nights, and 84.8 per cent of winter nights.

‘‘Xstrata has advised that not operating for this amount of time would not be financially viable for the proposal,’’ the report said.

In a statement this week after the Department of Planning was asked if it was reasonable to rely on a report where 95 out of 96 measurements were discounted because of the weather, a spokesman replied that there was ‘‘no evidence of the mine not complying with its noise conditions’’.

It also said it was ‘‘reasonable’’ of the mine to protect its employees from insults from the public, like being called ‘‘bastard’ and ‘‘idiot’’ by Mr and Mrs Brown.