Sonoma coal project

QCoal Pty Ltd is the proponent for an open cut coal development to be known as the Sonoma Coal Project. The proponent's application to prepare a voluntary Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project was accepted by the department on 17 May 2005. The department managed the assessment process for the project using the EIS process set out in Part 1 of Chapter 3 of the Environmental Protection Act 1994.

The Sonoma Coal Project is located in Bowen Shire, approximately 6 km to the south of the township of Collinsville. Exploration activities have defined a resource of approximately 40 million tonnes of economically recoverable coal. Mining operations will extract, using truck and shovel method, approximately 3 million tonnes per annum of coal for processing through a coal preparation plant. The coal output from the plant, expected to be approximately 2 million tonnes per annum, will be railed to Abbot Point coal terminal for export.

The project is expected to consist of three mining leases, with a total area of approximately 3560 hectares. Approximately 1000–1300 hectares is estimated to be disturbed by mining, overburden dumps, and other infrastructure.

Environmental values associated with the area include remnant ecological habitat associated with Coral Creek, cultural heritage associated with Coral Creek, and sensitive receptors in relation to air quality, noise and vibration. Potential issues include altered flood hydrology caused by levee banks along Coral Creek, vegetation clearing, coal dust impacts, noise impacts, local housing availability and traffic impacts. These and other potential impacts will be assessed during the EIS process.

The EIS Assessment Report for the Sonoma Coal Project has been issued to the proponent and the EIS process is now completed.

Publicly available documents:

• Final terms of reference for preparation of an environmental impact statement (see availability)
• Initial advice statement (see availability)
  • Figure 1 (see availability)
  • Figure 2 (see availability)
  • Figure 3 (see availability)
  • Figure 4 (see availability)
  • Table 4 (see availability)
• EIS assessment report (see availability)

For further information regarding the EIS process for the proposal, contact the EIS coordinator on telephone (07) 3224 8149.

Available from the library catalogue

The documents referred to on this page are available from the department’s online library catalogue.