BHP Billiton - Illawarra Coal - Dendrobium Mine - longwall mining - the whale cave - destruction

whale cave - aboriginal art - illawarra - cultural - historic - heritage

Please visit Frank Sartor & DECCW - Letters to Frank Sartor and Dept of Environment, Climate Change and Water re Whale Cave and Woronora Catchments (328 kb).

Independent Inquiry into NSW Southern Coalfield - the catastrophic failure in the 1980s of the Whale Cave site on the Illawarra Escarpment (page 32 of 55).

The Whale Cave - Avon & Cordeaux dam catchment

These photographs record the damage to the Whale Cave located in the Avon / Cordeaux dam catchment on the Illawarra Escarpment adjacent to BHP Billiton Illawarra Coals Dendrobium mine. The cave is a sacred site of great cultural and historical significance to the Wadi Wadi people of the Illawarra NSW.

The cave which is located adjacent to BHP Billiton Illawarra Coals Dendrobium mine was brought to our attention by tribal elder Allan Carriage who is a technical adviser to the Macarthur bushwalkers and a team member.

Allan informed us that the damage is caused by water penetrating cracks in the roof and walls of the cave caused by mining in the past. The water leaches minerals out of the sandstone reducing its strength.

Here we see Allan Carriage showing the attempted repair methods of the past.

Allan has no idea of how long the cave has been used by his people which needs to be investigated.

This cave was a meeting place, a sacred site, a place to live, an art gallery and has great spiritual significance to the Wadi Wadi people.

One wonders how would the people of Sydney react if St Andrews or St Mary's Cathedrals were treated in such a way. There would be a huge out cry if this were to happen to the State Library or one of Sydneys museums or art galleries.

Independent Inquiry into NSW Southern Coalfield Illawarra Coal Submission

Page31 of 55

In the Southern Coalfield, Caryll Sefton has conducted a monitoring program, and reviewed the effects of longwall mining on sandstone overhang Aboriginal archaeological sites over a 10 year period (Sefton 2000).
The review included data collected from the Illawarra Mines Appin, Tower, West Cliff, Elouera, Cordeaux and other nearby mines.
At the time of the review 52 sandstone overhang sites had been monitored by Sefton prior to, during and after longwall mining in the vicinity of the sites. Of the 52 sites monitored only five had evidence of impact from longwall mining. The impacts can be grouped into four effect categories: cracking; movement along existing joints / bedding planes; block fall; and change of water seepage.
No art panels in the monitoring program have been directly impacted by subsidence effects noted by Sefton.

Independent Inquiry into NSW Southern Coalfield Illawarra Coal Submission

page 32 of 55

Sefton has described the task of predicting subsidence impacts to individual archaeological sites as ‘difficult and complex’ (2000). However at a wider level our ability to confidently predict subsidence effects to the landscape are constantly improving.
Sefton’s systematic monitoring documents both natural changes in overhangs and changes that can be confidently attributed to longwall mining. The changes that are attributable to mining are due to overhang destabilisation.
These include block fall, exfoliation, cracking and associated changes in water seepage. These changes can also occur naturally in the absence of mining, as a result of weathering (Sefton 2000).
The results of Sefton’s monitoring program stand in contrast to the catastrophic failure in the 1980s of the Whale Cave site on the Illawarra Escarpment. In this case different mining methods were used at relatively shallower depths, and the site itself was a very large, cavernously weathered overhang in a very advanced stage of natural weathering.

Allan was clearly distressed at the condition of the cave and expressed doubts that it could be saved.

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