A statement from Peabody, owners of the Metropolitan Mine at Helensburgh

On 26 September 2022, a Peabody spokesperson shared the statement below:

Peabody sincerely regrets the recent incident and we are 100 per cent committed to carrying out comprehensive cleanup activities in the National Park in close consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Our environmental team has already carried out remediation work in the immediate vicinity of the site and clean up activities began in the Camp Creek area of the National Park early last week as soon as we received EPA approval.

Remediation work will be carried out in stages, with the initial phase focusing on the careful hand removal of coal sediment on the banks above the water line in the Camp Creek area.

Our teams will be accompanied by aquatic biologists with regular water testing planned to monitor impacts in water courses.

We are also continuing with our comprehensive program of construction works to improve site water management that we began earlier this year after record rains in the region.

From January to the end of July this year, the mine received almost 2500mm of rain, nearly double the expected annual rainfall in just seven months.

Work already completed includes the redesign and replacement of drains to create additional pathways for excess stormwater to be captured on site and the desilting of sedimentation dams using dredges and excavators.

Additional pumps have been installed and a new pipeline created to divert excess water to an alternate holding point during future heavy rain events.

Read how Helensburgh resident James McCormack, the editor of Wild Magazine, discovered the pollution at Camp Gully Creek in early September 2022