Community expectations about the long-term rehabilitation of Latrobe Valley mines will be tabled at an open forum.
Environment Victoria, which is set to appear at public hearings into mine rehabilitation at the reopened Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry next month, is inviting community input on rehabilitation options.
“We’re pushing for higher rehabilitation standards to meet community expectations and want to talk to the community and dig into the detail about how people feel about the current mine operators’ proposals,” Environment Victoria safe climate campaigner Nicholas Aberle said.
Dr Aberle said the community needed to be central to the decision making process surrounding mine rehabilitation and consider “what good rehabilitation looks like”. He explained while mine operators would be held accountable for short-term mine rehabilitation efforts such as clay capping and fire prevention, there needed to be a discussion about future land use.
“Each mine is of a similar size to the town next to it and the community needs to be involved in the decision making process to what happens to this land,” Dr Aberle said.
The Board of Inquiry has been invited to the forum as well as Monash University Endeavour Research Fellow and Czech Republic researcher Kamila Svobodova, who is surveying and comparing public attitudes towards mining and reclamation in Australia with those in her homeland.
The event will be held on Tuesday at Latrobe City Sports Stadium, Morwell. To RSVP phone 9341 8112 or visit
www.environmentvictoria.org.au
