Nicole Kidman’s Highlands retreat given reprieve – for now – as coal company shifts exploratory holes

Actor Nicole Kidman has unwittingly secured a 200-metre exclusion zone between her $6.5 million Sutton Forest, Southern Highlands farming property and the nearest coal exploratory drill hole in the area.

The joint venture partners of the coal exploration project, Cockatoo Coal and the South Korean company POSCO, now insist the two drill holes planned for the perimeter of Nicole Kidman’s property have been moved further away than was outlined in mapping in the publicly displayed March 2011 Review Of Environmental Factors.

The nearest drilling hole will now be 200 metres away from Nicole Kidman’s property.

At best it’s only a pyrrhic victory, for Kidman as the miners could go right under her farm property no matter where they drill holes if the residents lose the battle to stop the coal exploration, one Sutton Forest resident says.

The coal mining company issued a press release through its associate Hume Coal to hose down the media interest in the issue after the company directors became concerned with the international attention the matter was attracting. The residents’ battle against the coal mining has been raised in the English and American media since its recent Property Observer report.

The map is no longer reflective of where Cockatoo plan to drill the holes.

The company has declined to advise just how many of the other approved 118 holes had also shifted since the February 2011 maps went on public display on the website of the NSW Department of Primary Industries in March.

Nor was Hume able to give a date of the decision to move the two holes.

The March report had noted: “The proposed drill sites are specially selected to have minimal impact on the environment and community.”

It is understood the company rejects it had been influenced on the location by Nicole Kidman or husband Keith Urban.

“I’d be amazed if she had ever read the March document,” one insider says.

The press release denial fails to refer to the shift in the two holes’ location, instead merely denying the company has plans to drill on or at the borders of the Sutton Forest property owned by Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban.

“A number of Australian media outlets have incorrectly reported that Hume Coal is preparing to drill on or at the borders the property of Ms Kidman and Mr Urban as part of its exploration project. This is not the case,” it says.

Hume Coal holds an exploration licence covering an area of 115 square kilometres in the Southern Highlands of NSW.

Authorisation for exploration in the Hume Project area was first granted in 1967, and various exploration programs have been undertaken since then.

The press release also claims many of the holes would only be 10 centimetres in diameter and are considered very low impact.

Exploration holes could, however, require a disturbance area of 25 metres x 25 metres.

The first 30 holes of this program started last month within the Belanglo State Forest.

All exploration works will adhere to strict regulatory controls and ongoing monitoring by the NSW Department of Trade and Investment, Regional Infrastructure and Services and the Sydney Catchment Authority. Each site will be fully rehabilitated on completion.

“Coal mining has been an important part of the Southern Highlands economy since the 1800s,” the press release says.

“The Berrima Colliery, adjacent to the Hume Coal Project, has been operational for 85 years and has had minimal environmental impact on the area.”

This article first appeared on Property Observer.