Gary Blaschke OAM from Future Sooner addresses the Independent Planning Commission's public hearing on the lack of merit in approving the the planned Chain Valley Consolidation Project and expansion.

25 February 2026

ALAN HAYES

 

LAST Thursday, 19 February 2026, the Independent Planning Commission (IPC) held a public hearing on the Chain Valley Consolidation Project and expansion, which supplies coal to Delta Electricity’s Vales Point Power Station. Future Sooner, the community’s health advocacy group, raised issues of the absence of any form of Health Risk assessment in any part of the report.

 

Gary Blaschke OAM, President of Future Sooner, was abruptly told, as he commenced his presentation to the Commission, not to raise any issues about the legitimacy of the process where NSW Planning, Housing and Infrastructure (The Department) had prematurely released a Development Consent stating that the Independent Planning Commission, the declared consent authority, had already approved the development application in 2025.

 

Upon the release of the Development Consent there was no statement to identify if it was a draft document, nor has there been any retraction from The Department or the IPC that their actions could be seen as inappropriate. A lawyer, representing the IPC, merely said that it was “part of the normal course" (of their assessment) even though the Independent Planning Commission had not completed their hearing or made a decision.

 

A previous Development Consent in 2013 was similarly dealt with – approval prior to the public hearing. This Development Consent involved Lake Coal, who previously operated the Chain Valley Colliery and was a subsidiary of Delta Electricity. Mr Blaschke raised the issue of the connection of this development application with Vales Point power station (Delta Electricity) previous application and that he, and other members of Future Sooner had met with seven state and federal members of parliament on the Coast, who all chose to ignore the facts.

 

“The response from a number of government departments has also been disappointing,” Mr Blaschke said. “They simply had no problem approving the development.”

 

Those government departments that Mr Blaschke was referring to were: Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, NSW Subsidence Advisory, NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water, The Department of Planning and Environment, NSW EPA, NSW National Parks and Wildlife, DPI Fisheries and the NSW Resources Regulator.

 

DPI Fisheries gave their approval despite Delta Electricity being found guilty over the fish kill near its Vales Point Power Station in 2022.

 

The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), who launched legal action in September 2023 alleged that the fish kill was due to a valve maintenance failure which, led to sodium hypochlorite being discharged into the water.

 

Mr Blaschke said to the IPC, “How can you trust a company (Delta), who cannot get its act together by recently failing to turn up to the Land Environment Court for sentencing over the fish kill because they said that they couldn’t find the appropriate paperwork?”

 

Penny Sharpe MLC, Minister for Climate Change, Energy, Heritage and the Environment, granted consent before the Independent Planning Commission had concluded its public hearing and handed down its findings.

 

A doctor’s voice

 

Dr Merlene Thrift MBBS FACNEM, moved from the Mid-North Coast to the Eraring vicinity in 1985, and quickly discovered that the community was sicker than people living further north.

 

Whilst practicing in that area, Dr Thrift obtained a Fellowship in Nutritional and Environmental Medicine.

 

In addressing the IPC Panel, she was well-qualified to discuss health matters that continue to increase in the local community, due to coal mining and power station emissions.

 

Dr Thrift said that “extensions and amalgamation of the Colliery Licences will enable more pollution. This exacerbates climate change, health issues, environmental loss of biodiversity etc.”

 

“As I share stories of my experiences, multiply these cases by the number of GPs in the Hunter-Central Coast region to appreciate the magnitude of the health problems in our communities!”

 

Dr Thrift said that in in the mid 1980s more frequent and more severe Asthmatics were in the vicinity of sulphur-coloured Eraring coal emissions that settled over the south-western valleys when a north east wind was present. “I suspected Sulphur intolerance, as PM 2.5 and 10 particles, Nitrogen oxides (NOX) and Sulphur oxides (SOX) were not being discussed then.

 

“An Eraring Fitter and Turner came to see me about a  persistent cough. Investigations revealed he was suffering from Mesothelioma, caused from Asbestos exposure as he insulated large hot water pipes at the power station.

 

"I asked if anyone at home had a cough too?” Dr Thrift said.

 

The man said, “Yes, my wife!”

 

“Unfortunately, she died just before the year was out, due to her own Mesothelioma,” said Dr Thrift.

 

“She shook the dust off his overalls before putting them in the wash. They were both reported to the Dust Diseases Board for compensation, but sadly did not benefit long.”

 

Part of Dr Thrift’s work entailed shifts at Mannering Park. “I was not involved in treating two children with brain tumours, but it was known in the medical profession. These days children’s brain tumours are more frequent!”

 

“A man with a painful side of his tongue came a few years later. It was painful and not healing. He had a tumour and required part of his tongue removed by an Oro-facial Surgeon. He recovered, but had a permanent speech deficit afterwards,” Dr Thrift said.

 

The EPA and Public Health Unit (PHU) have continued to ignore the chronic ill health problems suffered by residents living in the northern suburbs of the Central Coast as a result of Coal-fired Power Station (CFPS) Emissions and Ash Dam leaching into the environment.

 

Instead they have EXTENDED CFPS Licenses! “As a result, our community's health is deteriorating,” Dr Thrift said.

 

Reports have found that Australia’s standards for Sulphur dioxide (SO2) pollution are among the laxest in the world, set at 11 times higher than the World Health Organisation’s recommended limit.

 

A Greenpeace report found that Australia’s SO2 standards allow domestic power stations to emit higher levels of Sulphur dioxide emissions than in China and the European Union. The report furthermore identified some top-emitting single sources of SO2 pollution, highlighting the Vales Point and Eraring coal-fired power stations.

 

The largest source of SO2 in the atmosphere is the burning of fossil fuels by power plants and other industrial facilities.

 

Sulphur dioxide pollution can cause health problems such as heart and lung disease, and asthma. The health risks from SO2 air pollution in Australia are therefore significant; nationwide, over 4,000 premature deaths are estimated to be caused by coal-fired power stations.

 

Nitrogen dioxide is strongly associated with childhood asthma and impaired lung development, while Sulphur dioxide pollution can cause inflammation of the respiratory tract, wheezing and lung damage.

 

In 2024, a report, by Livingstone etal in the Lancet medical journal, found that air quality is a modifiable cause of Dementia for 3% of patients in the UK. Unsurprisingly, there is a high and growing prevalence of dementia in the northern suburbs on the Central Coast. The region is experiencing a "dementia epidemic," with the number of people living with the disease expected to more than double by 2050.

 

An estimated 650 children on the Central Coast and at Lake Macquarie have asthma because of pollution that comes from the coal-fired power stations.

 

Alarmingly, mercury pollution from Vales Point has gone up 10%, and there was a 47% increase in sulfur dioxide. Yet the EPA refuses to release its reports on toxic pollution from Vales Point Power Station.

 

Eraring power station was found to have a horrifying 130% increase in mercury pollution, a 6% increase in nitrogen oxides pollution, a 16% increase in PM10 particle pollution, an 88% increase in PM2.5 fine particle pollution, and a 15% increase in sulfur dioxide pollution.

 

"Around 150 more people are dying of six types of cancers, PLUS multiple health conditions like Asthma, Chronic Obstructive Airways Disease (COPD), cardiovascular disease and diabetes than is found occurring in the equivalent industrialised areas of Sydney,” Dr Thrift said.

 

Studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health (PUBMED) have found foetuses that have been exposed to PM 2.5 particles, when the particles have crossed the lung and entered Mother’s circulation. When PM 2.5 particles cross the placenta, it alters both foetal DNA and mitochondrial DNA - weakening the foetus’ cell batteries.

 

“The PUBMED study also demonstrated that school children’s NAPLAN results are affected by emissions,” Dr Thrift said.

 

Dr Thrift said that the IPC Commissioner for the Chain Valley Consolidation Project and expansion said “We have never considered the health impact”.

 

A disaster waiting to happen

 

Future Sooner say that the Chain Valley Consolidation Project and expansion fails in five major areas:

 

• There is no benefit to the public

 

• Air quality - impact on human health

 

• Climate change and greenhouse gas emissions

 

• Impact on water resources

 

• Impacts to soil and land capability

 

• Impact on biodiversity

 

Mr Blaschke said that four years ago, Delta applied to extend its Chain Valley Bay collieries. “Its 2025 colliery expansion application  to pollute more hasn’t changed,” he said.

 

“Four years ago, NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure’s (DPHI) received over 180 submissions. Of them,130 were objections, many quoting air pollutions as the major health issue.

 

“Delta’s response to the substantial concerns raised by the public and experts did nothing to address those issues.

 

“Back then the DPHI made no decision. Four years on, and the DPHI created the IPC to flick the problem it doesn’t want to deal with over to it.

 

“Delta’s colliery consolidation/expansion will lead to up to 24 million extra tonnes of CO2 in our atmosphere and thousands of additional tonnes of the toxic elements that the communities around the colliery and the power station have been living with, and dying from, for decades.”

 

“Delta has already demonstrated that whatever consent conditions are imposed, it will ignore them.

 

“It beggars belief that the IPC could consider, let alone approve any application from Delta given its history,” said Mr Blaschke.

 

“The approval of Delta’s colliery expansion by the IPC would be proof of the NSW Government’s refusal to exercise its duty of care to its citizens and the environment.”

 

Introduced into evidence at the IPC hearing by Future Sooner was the outcome of the Ghost Wipes carried out by William Roberts Lawyers.

 

The Ghost Wipes showed that twelve different toxic substances were found on regional homes in the area. Lead was twenty-eight times greater than the Australian Average, Chromium fifteen times greater, Nickel twelve times greater and Arsenic four times greater, and the list went on.

 

Mr Blaschke said that at a recent meeting with NSW EPA, Future Sooner were told that the reason for all the Lead and toxic materials was because of the amount of traffic on the roads. “Yet, what they failed to say was that Lead in petrol was made illegal in 2002, some 24 years ago.”

 

Chain Valley Consolidation Project and expansion's Environmental Impact Statement report (EIS) admitted that further coal extractions located beneath Lake Macquarie had the possibility of Vales Point power station producing a further 44.8 Million tonnes of coal ash until its closure in 2033, doubling the size of the existing coal ash dam.

 

The EIS further concluded that air quality would be impacted and that further subsidence of up to 78-centimetres in the lake and twenty-centimetres on land was likely to occur. The EIS also determined that greenhouse gas emissions would impact surface water of the lake and local creeks, causing issues for the lake and waterway's biodiversity, seagrasses and benthic organisms.

 

Mr Blaschke said that since the IPC had no health information, and until such time that the NSW Coal Ash and Health Community Advisory Committee completed their Health Risk Assessment, as required by the NSW Government, that "Future Sooner rejects every part of the Chain Valley Consolidation Project and expansion plan and that the Commission should reject the development plan also".

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE to the Grapevine News Online and to the monthly e-book edition of the Grapevine Community Weekly. Our online news platform and monthly newspaper is about real local news and events. We will not spam you or share your details with third parties.