Mine's 200-year threat to water Under scrutiny: Clive Palmer. Photo: Dean Sewell A new open-cut coalmine in Queensland, to be dug by Clive Palmer's Waratah Coal company, could affect water supplies in the region for up to 200 years. The central Queensland mine would also cut the Bimblebox Nature Refuge in half, with about 4000 hectares of bushland to be cleared by the proposed mine. Waratah Coal conceded in its latest environmental submission that the cumulative impacts on groundwater from other mines in the basin would be high. However, it said the impacts of its own proposed coalmine, called China First, would be "negligible" after mitigation. Public submissions on the mining company's latest environmental impact statement closed on Monday, and Bimblebox Nature Refuge has argued Waratah Coal has not done enough research into the pollution of groundwater. Bimblebox says no government or mining company has done proper modelling on how groundwater could be affected or for how long. In Bimblebox's 2011 submission it asked what would Waratah Coal do if landholders reported a decline in water quality while the mine was operating and how long the company would bear responsibility for any pollution. "Water impacts may persist in the region for up to 200 years," the submission said. Who will bear responsibility for maintaining 'make good' arrangements for the life of those impacts, following mine closure? Is there a guarantee that the burden will not fall on the government and taxpayer? Waratah Coal did not address the questions in their supplementary environmental impact statement released last month. Their responses to submissions from the Department of Environment and Resource Management on groundwater said they had started developing "extensive" groundwater modelling. When responding to a departmental question about the potential for impacts that lasted 200 years, Waratah Coal responded it would take it into account in their "make good" commitments where necessary. If the mine is approved, Waratah Coal's own assessment is that Bimblebox will lose its nature refuge status, as 4000 hectares of the 8000-hectare conservation plot would be cleared.