Mine rehabilitation

The Mining Act 1992 defines rehabilitation as the treatment or management of disturbed land or water to establish a safe and stable environment. Mining rehabilitation can cover a range of activities, including:

• demolishing infrastructure
• remediating contaminated land
• establishing a final landform
• revegetation.

We ensure major mining projects rehabilitate previously mined land so it can be used for other purposes. Our regulatory framework aims to achieve the best outcomes for rehabilitation at 4 key stages of a mine’s life cycle:

• exploration
• assessment
• operation
• after closure.

The framework is jointly regulated through conditions on planning consents, environmental protection licences issued by the Environment Protection Authority, and mining leases issued by the Department of Regional NSW.

We are working with the Department of Regional NSW to strengthen rehabilitation and regulation requirements for all state-significant mining projects in NSW including:

• new standard lease conditions that require progressive rehabilitation, risk assessment, annual reporting and detailed management planning
• form-and-way documents to identify the requirements for preparing:
  • management plans
  • objectives
  • completion criteria
  • final landform and rehabilitation plans
  • annual reports
  • forward programs
• guides to risk assessment, records and rehabilitation controls
• development of a rehabilitation portal to collect spatial data for large mining projects
• a new suspension of mining operations policy.