Bylong Valley residents are hopeful that one of the State's richest agricultural food producing districts could once again be controlled by local families if South Korean mining giant KEPCO finally abandons its plans to mine the area.
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It comes after a group of neighbours in the Liverpool Plains this week bought back land purchased for Shenhua's planned Watermark coal mine near Gunnedah.
China Shenhua Energy Company acquired more than 40 sites in 2009 and 2010 for over $190 million.
Following a fierce public campaign, the State Government agreed to pay Shenhua $262 million in 2017 to hand back 51 per cent of the exploration licence.
A decline in the prospects for thermal coal exports saw the government do another deal to cancel the project in April last year. Shenhua received a further $100 million of public funds to hand back its mining rights.
On Monday, the government revealed it had sold 16,000 hectares to 12 local farming families and one offshore buyer.
Local farmer and anti-coal mine campaigner Andrew Pursehouse estimated Shenhua had paid local farmers "five to 10 times" what properties were worth 13 years ago to secure them for its mining project.
Hopes were high late last year that a similar scenario could unfold in Bylong when Kepco lost its second legal appeal against the Independent Planning Commission's 2019 decision to reject its mining proposal due to the impact it would have had on water, highly productive farming country, and the climate.
Instead the company has indicated it wishes to take the matter to the High Court.
KEPCO has reportedly paid about $115 million for more than 12,000 hectares ( about 42 per cent of the Bylong Valley), including a church, the general store, the local public school, and significant private landholdings including historic Tarwyn Park.
Some locals are hopeful the land will once again be owned by locals.
"It would be awesome. Even if we went one better than [the Liverpool Plains buyback] and had Bylong all Australian owned," Farmer and Bylong Valley Protection Alliance president Phillip Kennedy said.
"It would be great to see the valley filled up with the mum and dad farmers which are the most productive units in Australia for this sort of country. You might get corporations out west in broad acre stuff but that's not going to happen here. It's predominantly cattle, smaller holdings."
Among the properties that KEPCO holds is Tarwyn Park, the home of natural sequence farming in Australia.
While he welcomed the prospect of KEPCO offloading properties, he said he was undecided as to whether he would be interested in buying it back.
"I have said that if it was to be sold it would be better off purchased by the government and handed over to the public and set up as an institute for learning," he said.
"I would love nothing more than to go back there. There's lots of history there - good and bad. For us as a family we would probably be better off visiting rather than living there."
Lock the Gate Alliance spokesperson Georgina Woods said the Liverpool Plains buyback had set a precedent that should be applied to Bylong.
"Rather than continuing to drag the Bylong community through the courts, KEPCO should accept it will never build its coal mine in the valley and sell the land back to farming families," she said.
"Farmers in the Liverpool Plains have only just signed the deal to buy land back from Shenhua, but already there is a sense of joy in the community. This sets a precedent that KEPCO and the NSW Perrottet Government must apply to the Bylong Valley.
"The South Korean Government, which owns KEPCO, has ambitious climate targets that do not align with the opening of new coal mines.
"The Bylong Valley should never have been made available to coal mining. Now, more than ever before, it makes no sense to sacrifice this agricultural powerhouse to a twilight industry.
"The Perrottet Government must now extinguish the coal licence, just like the State Government did with Shenhua on the Liverpool Plains, and make productive agricultural land off-limits to mining forever so that Bylong can once again be the prosperous town it used to be."
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Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly has worked as a journalist for more than 25 years. He has been working as a general reporter at the Newcastle Herald since 2018. In recent years he has reported on subjects including environment, energy, water security, manufacturing and higher education. He has previously covered issues including the health and environmental impacts of uncovered coal wagons in the Hunter Valley, the pollution of legacy of former industrial sites and freedom of information issues.
Matthew Kelly has worked as a journalist for more than 25 years. He has been working as a general reporter at the Newcastle Herald since 2018. In recent years he has reported on subjects including environment, energy, water security, manufacturing and higher education. He has previously covered issues including the health and environmental impacts of uncovered coal wagons in the Hunter Valley, the pollution of legacy of former industrial sites and freedom of information issues.
