Mining Company Gets ‘Slap on the Wrist’ for Water Theft

A number of climate action groups were present at the Brisbane rallies including the Lock the Gates group opposed to coal seam gas. Shar Adams/Epoch Times

A major petroleum and coal mining company has been spared prosecution for unlawfully using hundreds of millions of litres of water from a river in rural New South Wales during one of the worst droughts in the state’s history.

Japanese energy giant Idemitsu was found to be unlawfully collecting and using the water at its Boggabri Coal Mine in northeastern NSW following an investigation by the state’s water regulator.