This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Queensland’s environment department is investigating claims that the mining company New Hope expanded existing operations at its New Acland coalmine without permission.

The state environment department confirmed on Thursday it was investigating New Hope’s controversial mine, west of Brisbane, but the company insisted the complaints were part of a campaign against it.

A protracted legal battle is still raging over the proposed stage three extension of the mine.

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The Oakey coal action alliance is appealing a Queensland supreme court decision to reverse an earlier decision scrapping the stage three expansion.

Paul King, president of the alliance, said his group was happy the department had taken its members’ concerns seriously.

“Stage two of the Acland mine has had dramatic impacts on our community, that is why we have objected to its stage three expansion,” he said.

New Hope spent $1.2m promoting New Acland mine before Queensland election Read more

“Now New Hope is circumventing due process and mining wherever they want anyway.”

The miner denied the allegations and claimed the complaints were tied to the legal challenge to stage three.

“New Hope find it generally disappointing that [the alliance] (with the support of the Environmental Defenders Office), after being unsuccessful in the judicial review proceedings, are now bypassing the land court and remaining statutory processes in an attempt to stop the project,” it said.

In its appeal, the alliance argued that the ruling that groundwater impacts could not be considered in mining objection hearings opened a Pandora’s box for future objections, not just the New Acland project.