There is a tendency any government report to be biased in its summaries to reflect the desires of political appointees and project beneficeries. This is most apparent in reports about environmental impacts caused by mining projects.

One hears rumours of course. The recent report for the Baird Government on the effects of 'privatisation' of about half of the NSW electricity grid was sent back to the editors, after a mention was discovered in the report, that possibly in some many years hence, the states budget position might be worse off.  Technically the sale has been described as a 'leasing' for 99 years.  How a grid which has many interconnections can be precisely cut into any given financial or physical percentage is quite unexplained. It is possible that the NSW state will let the buyer effectively run the entire network, by defaulting on control of its 'own' half of the grid. Perhaps the sale has something only to do with the share of revenues. The only way find out what it all means in fine print, will be to read the tedious report, which is not be the same thing as knowing detail of the final signed contracts, and the plans of the buyers, and what will happen to regulation and price of supply in the future.

The federal governments intergeneration report of 2015 was successfully pilloried by Richard Denis on abc radio. There was more left out of the IGR than put in. Assumptions were buried or left out. Climate change, Population overgrowth , Peak oil, water issues are remarkable in their absence, replaced by bland assumptions about future GDP growth and prosperity, (pick a desired growth percentage number) with no presented evidence. ( http://theconversation.com/the-intergenerational-report-underestimates-climate-threat-an-open-letter-to-the-government-38699 )

The Australia Institute went so far as to release their own report on the obvious implications of Australian population growth through the current policy and practices on net migration. ( http://www.tai.org.au/content/australia-world-leader-%E2%80%93-population-growth )  The nature of government review and reports is to try and get "no surprises", and just reinforce what politicians have let out in their "thought bubbles".  Its not surprising that the assumptions and desires that go into the report may be garbage, and what comes out is garbage. ( IGR: Garbage in – Garbage out )

The notorious "environmental offsets" are almost standard ploy, as threatened species and ecosystems are to be bulldozed for a development. Even if valid, their currency does not last. Years later, the 'offsets' and promises of past governments and present corporations regarding past offsets are repealed as if they never happened, as further development requires more environment sacrifice.  A large corporation such as Rio Tinto, had no binding promises in mind when it originally agreed to leave the town of Bulga and associated nature reserves alone, in order to obtain nearby licenses.  As soon as it was ready to expand its operation with exhaustion of the original mining area, the state government was willing to go to court , and change legislation, to obtain the overriding license conditions required by Rio Tinto.  The promises and bindings of Environmental agreements made by governments and corporations often prove to be worthless.

The "environmental offsets" promised for the Maules Creek Coal Mine, in its environmental impacts plan and "strict conditions", to offset destruction of the Leard State Forest are not going to save a single threatened species. The offsets were not comparably matched. They are only an example of currently unwanted land, which would be revoked, should some valueable mineral be found underneath.  There is little possibility of transfer migration. Species do not easily migrate, in the same way that humans can. All ecosystems are "full", and many are already last refuges, and too small and isolated, because of a long history of development. Offerings of "offsets" are an insult to ecological understanding.

Government environmental reports and reviews concerning the Sydney Water Catchment areas appear to have been especially subject to misrepresentation. Take the 2008 review on the impacts of the Southern Coalfields.  The problem here is that it is obvious the government is not going to accept any solution where mining is not allowed to take place.  The swamps that make up the base flow areas of water catchment are unfortunately above the only mineable coking quality coal in the state of NSW. The report is title Impacts of Underground Coal Mining on Natural Features in the Southern CoalFields. Even the title hides the fact that the most important "natural feature" is the source of all Sydney's drinking water.  It would have been far more honest to call it "Destruction of Sydney's Drinking Water Sources by Long Wall Coal Mining".  The term "Southern CoalFields" tries to imply that there is not any other possible use for the area. It is apparently wrong to call it Sydney's Environmental Support Hinterland, or Ecological Footprint or the sources of all the rivers that enabled Sydney and its population to grow to its present size from a fledgeling settlement over 200 years ago. It just so happens that there are coal seams under it.

The review pretty much takes a framing that leaving any of the economically mineable coal in the ground for any reason is politically unthinkable.

 . . . If mining of hard coking coal in the Southern Coalfield is to continue, then a certain level of subsidence impact must be accepted as a necessary outcome of that mining.

This implies it is unacceptable that the mining of hard coking coal not continue, even if there were damages to special areas of Sydney Water Catchment. The review mentions the onus of proof, but puts it firmly on the environmental side. Evidence of damage to swamps, was airily dismissed in the report.

. . . However, at all sites inspected by the Panel, there had been a range of other environmental factors in play, including evidence of pre-existing scour pools, previous initiation of erosion, concurrent drought, and subsequent heavy rainfall and/or severe bushfires. The sequence of events was not clear in relation to the swamp impacts (drying, erosion and scouring, water table drop, burning, vegetation succession, etc).

The fact that all the "other environmental factors in play" , that are most likely the recent "secondary consequences" of the initial impact of mining caused subsidence is a neat way of avoiding all responsibility for damage.  Fortunately the panel also had an ecologist and a groundwater expert, and in a detailed table, the secondary consequences are listed. For swamps - consequences are the loss of swamp ecology, both terrestrial and aquatic. The loss of flow leads to the full range of downstream consequences. There are signficant impacts on ground water reservoirs, listed as failure of GDE's (Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems), cross aquifer contamination, minewater inflows, consequent mine water management issues. Loss of available aquifer resource.

How do we get to write "No evidence was presented to the Panel to support the view that subsidence impacts on rivers and significant streams, valley infill or headwater swamps, or shallow or deep aquifers have resulted in any measurable reduction in runoff to the water supply system operated by the Sydney Catchment Authority or to otherwise represent a threat to the water supply of Sydney or the Illawarra region.", so near the beginning of the review?  This sounds so absolutely certain. It is most likely written in by a government bureaucrat to give the review its proper "weight" of evidence. A giant bureaucratic hand leaning on the scales to give the desired answer.  For the record every salaried failure of understanding can be covered by the general statement.

. . .Further research is required before a definitive conclusion can be reached.

It was much more likely that no evidence was understood or accepted as such by the panel. Obvious evidence of damage must be covered.  The damage to the Waratah Rivulet was dimissed by labelling it "site specific".  All damage by LWCM is by definition "site specific". The distortions of collapse caused by Long Wall Coal Mining, are modelled by assuming simple even strata with linear depth and width parameters, but they are applied to real irregular not-flat geological and ecosystem features with unique "history". Precise impacts are so unpredictable. General impacts are certain. Dismissing a particular impact as being "site specific" is like saying any damage was a low probability unlucky event. As the "panels" are parallel, the impacts cover large areas, and the combined impacts of the "features" above are essentially unpredictable.

By claiming "site-specific" and saying a "subsidence management plan" will be created, a coal miner lgets to try to predict the damage each long panel will cause. If they predict it nearly right, then the damage was caused, and they predicted it.  If the prediction is wrong, then it is "site-specific" damage.  In neither cases can damage be substantially rectified, and efforts to remediate will be limited.

Even if practical, remediation would be costly, far more costly than the profit return for each tonne of coal.  It would have been far better if the coal had been left in the ground, and industry had paid the extra $20 / tonne to import the coal from mines elsewhere with less sensitive ecological impacts.  Today the commodity prices of coal have plummetted, so costs of attempted remediation are impossible to pay out of the profits of mining, and the cost of importing the coal would be substantially less. The coal industry is also threatened by rising energy costs of extraction. Economic growth is itself under threat from fixed "system limits".

The precognitive framework of the final editors of the report was that the mining must be allowed go ahead. The Minerals Council of NSW obviously was allowed to have a strong weight in the review. Dependent steel making industries, and exports of coking coal were stated as if absolutely necessary. The NSW government continues to want its royalties of 6 or 7 percent from the selling price of the coal. Their are dependent jobs, incomes, direct and indirect economic benefits. At the time, coking coal was at a premium price of around $150 / tonne.  The mining is expected to continue at a rate of about 10-11 Mt of coking coal for decades. It has been reasonably argued elsewhere, that the jobs multiplier analysis for distributed economic benefits used in such presentations tends to exaggerate such benefits. Alternative industry investments may give more direct employment, as the coal industry is heavily automated. Apart from direct impacts of mining, there are other externality costs that are not weighted against the benefits. 

The mining sector is not a large employer (http://www.tai.org.au/content/mining-not-large-employer). But it does get a large income flow, has permanent lobby installed to pressure and sway government, and makes large political donations. Its corporations have a permanent group, The NSW Minerals Council, to tell governments what to do, and help ministers and departments write reports, reviews and legislation.

All reports are political documents. It helps to know the political bias of the government when reading them. Reports that in particular, threaten the current status quo of economic growth, with siphoning of profits to build elite wealth,  from depletion of nature, will hide as much as possible, by all means,  the long lasting or permanent damage that this causes.  There are so many examples of suppression of the "bad" news, that I should not have to list them. It happens because of human nature, the structure of bureaucracy, in every nation. It leads to understating of , or denial of climate change, permanent loss of ecosystems, and harmful pollution, that are the direct by-products of industry, and are predictable and harmful natural consequences of striving always for "economic growth" and "economic efficiency".

Bureaucrats in the Planning Department, conferring with relevant Ministers, select these panels. Ministers come and go, so the senior bureaucrats are no doubt relied on to produce lists of suitable names in an arcane specialty which politicians know little about. The selection process is secret.

In one case, where expansion of Peabody Energy’s longwall mining in the Woronora Special Area was approved by a PAC panel in 2009, in spite of damage already evident in the Waratah Rivulet, one of the panel members was actually working for Peabody as a consultant at the time, at Peabody’s Wambo mine in the Hunter. He had previously worked for Peabody’s Wilpinjong Mine near Mudgee. He later wrote, after we complained, that the Planning Department was actually his employer, not Peabody. But since when has the Planning Department employed consultants for the mining industry ?

It seems to be the same "experts" that are employed as "mining consultants" that helped write this review, that are used in PAC hearings to approve additional mine workings. For instance the sole "export" in the Corrimal Mine PAC was the same "Emeritus Professor Jim Galvin" helping to write this 2008 "Coalfields" review. While his expertise is "subsidence" from long wall coal mining, the ecological effects on water catchment swamps will be beyond his prediction, because this has not be allowed to be tried anywhere else in the world.

Evidence for "potential" impacts of subsidence from LWCM on the swamps already exists. It just needs to be officially recognized as such.

I am sure the probable woolly thinking behind the thought of destruction of wetland ecosystems is that "when it rains, the water will run-off to the dam anyway". That it might might be filthy dirty with eroded sediment and dissolved minerals is not considered a significant issue.  Nor is the possibility that the water will drain deep down, and never appear again in the river systems.  About 3 billion litres of water per year of flow is now thought go missing from our water catchments from cumulative impacts of long wall coal mining.