Newcastle Herald – Newcastle,Australia
BY DONNA SHARPE
27 Nov, 2009 04:00 AM
THE cavalry will charge in Scone tomorrow as two of the Hunter Valley’s most powerful and profitable industries collide.
It’s foals versus coal in the battle of Bickham, which has pitted Australia’s horse capital and multibillion-dollar thoroughbred industry against Bickham Coal’s proposed Upper Hunter open-cut mine.
The call has gone out for 1000 horse riders, led by Scone-based Olympic equestrian Nikki Richardson, to saddle up and ride through Kelly Street, Scone, from noon tomorrow to protest against the mine plan.
A rally will be held outside Upper Hunter Council chambers in Liverpool Street during the ride with radio broadcaster Alan Jones as guest speaker.
Representatives of Upper Hunter thoroughbred studs, the Australian Stock Horse Society, polo, polocrosse, dressage, showjumping, eventing, campdrafting, pony club, racing, heavy horse, police and show horse groups will participate in the event.
Organiser Katrina Partridge, of Arrowfield Stud, said the protest aimed to protect the Australian horse capital and its groundwater systems.
She said that while the Lower Hunter was home to a number of coalmining operations, the Upper Hunter was primarily an agricultural region that had no open-cut coalmining operations and only one (suspended) underground coalmine.
“The Bickham Coal Project will change this and result in potentially significant adverse impacts on surrounding groundwater systems and on the connected Pages River and Kingdon Ponds,” Ms Partridge said.
“Australia’s horse capital is now under threat.”
The mine is proposed for a site about 12 kilometres south-east of Murrurundi near the Pages River and Kingdon Ponds.
It will extract 36 million tonnes during its 25-year life from two adjacent open-cut pits.
About 80 Murrurundi residents rallied yesterday in support of the mine.
They believe it will provide an economic lifeline to their town and will not adversely affect the water supply.
Ms Partridge said horse-lovers who would ride tomorrow had nicknamed their stand “the Bickham Beersheeba”, a reference to the heroics of the Australian Light Horse at Beersheeba in Egypt in 1917.
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