Retired Civil Engineer, Project Manager and Mine Manager

I like to find the best answer to problems by working with people.

I worked mostly in the Yallourn and Hazelwood mines finding and implementing solutions to problems – including where are we going to mine?

Hazelwood was sold on 13 Sept 1996 with an expectation of a further 40-year life. By 1998 Hazelwood had no plan for coal winning beyond 2005. I made a plan, sold that plan to Management and then successfully implemented it over the next 12 years. The plan included running Hazelwood’s last Environmental Effects Statement (EES) amongst many other elements. Delivery of the plan was followed by a period as Hazelwood’s Mine Manager before writing Hazelwood’s first mine stability management plan.

I retired in 2014. Hazelwood closed in March 2017. My Wife passed away in 2019 following a long illness.

Observing the news and following what was happening with Mine Rehabilitation I became increasingly frustrated and concerned with what was happening and not happening. I spoke to a former work colleague about my concerns and was subsequently invited to join GLP in 2020. I joined in the hope that expressing my concerns might reduce my frustration and lead to better outcomes for the people of the Latrobe Valley.

Unfortunately, my concerns largely remain today except that we now have greater knowledge of what is likely to unfold without intervention.

With closure of the brown coal generators and mines over the next decade the Latrobe Valley faces some difficult times. No mine is completely isolated from the other mines. They are connected by all wanting the same limited water supply and surface and sub-surface interconnections making their rehabilitation and subsequent repurposing big inter-connected problems. Making this more difficult is that it has never been done before on this scale, in these circumstances and involving so many parties with potentially conflicting interests.

I like big problems.

Put simply - the Latrobe Valley needs to unite in calling for a plan to deliver repurposed mine lands without the economic and social devastation that we are on course to encounter.

There are solutions – they need to be quantified and delivered in a plan.