News · Land use · Lake Macquarie
Asbestos, PFAS and methane confirmed. Five of sixteen areas never dug into. The rezoning is built to proceed anyway
On 16 August we read the economics behind the plan to turn two closed Hunter coal sites into industrial land. The same exhibition package contains the contamination assessment for the Lake Macquarie site, and it is the more careful document. It confirms asbestos, PFAS and hazardous ground gases across multiple parts of the 1,160 hectare precinct beside Cockle Creek. It also records that five of the sixteen areas it divides the site into have never been intrusively investigated, and that the tailings dam has no soil, groundwater, surface water or sediment data at all, while its water drains into abandoned underground workings. None of that stops the rezoning, and it is not meant to: the investigation is deliberately deferred to the development application stage. Consultation closed on 11 August.
The Macquarie Coal Complex is about 20 kilometres south-west of Newcastle, bounded by Barnsley to the north, Cockle Creek and the main Central Coast to Newcastle rail line to the east, Teralba and Wakefield to the south and Killingworth to the west. It is roughly 28 allotments owned by the Macquarie Coal Joint Venture, on Awabakal land. West Wallsend stopped mining in 2016, Westside in 2012, the coal preparation plant stopped producing in 2016, and Teralba Southgate stopped in 2001.
The state is rezoning it. Not the council: a departmental evaluation panel met on 20 January 2026 and the Secretary of the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure approved it as a state-led rezoning on 11 February, on the grounds that it is state or regionally significant and that a state pathway suits the complexity of a post-mining site. The announcement in July put the two pilot sites at more than 7,000 jobs. This piece is about what the ground under one of them is made of.
What has been found
Aurecon prepared the contamination technical assessment for the department, final revision
dated 1 July 2026. It divides the site into sixteen domains and reviews investigations run
progressively since 2005. Its conclusion on the central question is favourable and should be read
first: soil, groundwater and surface water are
generally compatible with industrial and commercial land uses
through a staged, risk-based
pathway, and no exceedances of human health investigation levels for commercial or industrial land
use were identified in the previous work.
What has been found is ecological rather than acute, and it is specific. The assessment records
that Contamination sources including asbestos in fill materials, PFAS in soil and groundwater,
and hazardous ground gases have been confirmed across multiple domains
. Ecological
investigation level exceedances were reported in soil and sediment, which the report attributes to
the legacy of coal preparation, and says these require management to protect Cockle Creek and Lake
Macquarie.
Underneath the summary the detail is sharper. At the West Wallsend pit top facilities, fibrous asbestos is confirmed in surface soils and needs further assessment. At two other domains, earlier consultants confirmed ecological exceedances for heavy metals, total recoverable hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PFAS in soils and groundwater, asbestos containing material at both, and methane at mine shaft locations. A 2022 human health and environmental risk assessment at Teralba Southgate found methane and carbon dioxide above acceptable thresholds at mine shafts, and concluded the site was not suitable for sensitive land uses without further investigation and remediation.
What has not been looked at
This is the part worth a resident’s attention, and the report states it plainly:
Five domains have not been subject to intrusive investigations
, and multiple domains lack
groundwater, surface water, sediment or soil vapour and ground gas data. The gaps matter most, it
says, for the sensitive land uses: residential, recreation and conservation.
| Domain | What is missing |
|---|---|
| Domain 7, the tailings dam | No intrusive investigation undertaken. No soil, groundwater, surface water or sediment sampling data available. No acid sulfate soil data. Water and sediment quality not assessed, and water drains into abandoned underground workings |
| Domain 6, West Wallsend pit top facilities and dams | Wastewater cells not completely assessed; no groundwater data to assess hydrocarbon impact; no measured data from the methane drainage well; fibrous asbestos confirmed in surface soils and requiring further assessment |
| Domain 8, rejects emplacement area | Limited soil, groundwater or surface water sampling; no vapour or methane assessment; slag materials not fully characterised |
| Conservation areas | No intrusive investigation data for soil, groundwater, surface water or sediment; acid sulfate soil risk mapped but not investigated |
The tailings dam is the one to hold onto. It is named in the assessment as a significant constraint requiring detailed, multidisciplinary work across contamination, water management, geotechnical stability and dam safety. A 2025 assessment of it by another consultant covered geotechnical integrity and closure design only, with no intrusive contamination data included. So the single structure on the site most likely to hold concentrated process residues is the one with the least sampling behind it, and the report says further assessment is needed under both the Contaminated Land Management Act and the Protection of the Environment Operations Act.
Why the rezoning proceeds regardless
It would be easy, and wrong, to read the gaps as an oversight. The assessment is explicit that the investigation is meant to happen later. It sets six performance criteria covering land use suitability, water quality protection, validation and monitoring, hazardous ground gas assessment, spoil management and waste characterisation, and it defines triggers so that the depth of investigation is proportionate to how sensitive the proposed use is and how much ground gets disturbed. Development applications will have to be supported by site-specific assessments confirming the land suits what is proposed.
That is a normal and defensible way to rezone a former industrial site, and the alternative, fully characterising 1,160 hectares before anything is zoned, would cost years. The thing worth saying out loud is what it means in practice: the zoning decision is being made now and the ground truth arrives later, application by application, in documents that will be exhibited one at a time to whoever is paying attention by then. The scrutiny that a single exhibition period concentrates gets spread across a decade of development applications.
One thing in the package that does not agree with itself
Teralba Southgate, the oldest of the four areas, is described differently by two documents
exhibited together. The department’s explanation of intended effect, dated July 2026, lists
it as one of the four areas making up the 1,160 hectare rezoning proposal, and mentions it nowhere
else. The contamination assessment, finalised on 1 July 2026, opens by noting that Teralba
Southgate has been removed from the scope of the Master Plan and will not be pursued under a
State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) rezoning process
, and is instead proposed for
rezoning under a local environmental plan.
We cannot tell from the package which is current, and it may simply be that one document was drafted before a scope decision the other reflects. It is worth recording because the two say different things about whether one of the four component sites is in this rezoning at all, and because anyone who read the department’s document and made a submission on that basis was submitting on a different footprint from the one the consultant was assessing.
What happens next
Consultation closed on 11 August 2026, so there is nothing left to submit to. The Net Zero Economy Authority says final master plans are expected by November 2026. The questions worth carrying to that document are narrow and answerable: whether the five uninvestigated domains are named in it, whether the tailings dam gets a work programme rather than a constraint rating, and whether Teralba Southgate is in or out.
Sources
- Aurecon Australasia for the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Post Mining Land Use, Rezoning, Macquarie Coal Complex Pilot Project: Contamination Technical Assessment, revision B, 1 July 2026 (PDF, 66 pages, downloaded and read 17 August 2026): the sixteen domains and investigations since 2005; the conclusion on compatibility with industrial and commercial use and the absence of human health investigation level exceedances for that use; the confirmed asbestos, PFAS and hazardous ground gases; the ecological exceedances and the reference to Cockle Creek and Lake Macquarie; the five uninvestigated domains; the data-gap entries for domains 6, 7 and 8 and the conservation areas; the tailings dam as a significant constraint, the 2025 geotechnical-only assessment of it, and the Contaminated Land Management Act and Protection of the Environment Operations Act reference; the 2022 human health and environmental risk assessment findings at Teralba Southgate; the six performance criteria and the investigation and remediation triggers; and the statement that Teralba Southgate has been removed from the master plan scope.
- NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Explanation of Intended Effect, Post Mining Land Use Pilot Project, Macquarie Coal Complex, July 2026 (PDF, read 17 August 2026): the 1,160 hectare rezoning proposal and its four component areas with their closure years; the approximately 28 allotments owned by the Macquarie Coal Joint Venture; the current SP1, C2, C3 and RU2 zonings; the site boundaries at Barnsley, Cockle Creek, the rail line, Teralba, Wakefield and Killingworth; and the up to 1,130 direct jobs cited as a state-led rezoning eligibility criterion.
- NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, Evaluation Panel Outcome Report, State Significant Rezoning Policy (PDF, read 17 August 2026): the site named as West Wallsend (Macquarie) Mine at The Broadway, Killingworth; Glencore as applicant and landowner; Lake Macquarie as the local government area; the panel meeting of 20 January 2026 and its membership; the criteria marked; the outcome endorsing a state-led rezoning; and the Secretary’s approval on 11 February 2026.
- NSW Planning Portal, Macquarie Coal Complex Transformation Precinct (read 17 August 2026 while on exhibition; the portal has since moved it to post-exhibition, consultation having closed on 11 August 2026): the exhibition package and its fifteen documents, from which the reports above were downloaded.
- Net Zero Economy Authority, Hunter communities invited to help shape future opportunities at former mine sites, 17 July 2026 (read 16 August 2026): the 11 August close of consultation and the November 2026 date for final master plans.
How we read this
Everything here comes from the exhibited documents. The domain-level data gaps are taken from the assessment’s own summary table and condensed in wording, not in substance; the conclusions and the statement about Teralba Southgate are quoted directly. We have reported the favourable finding first because it is the assessment’s own headline conclusion and omitting it would misrepresent the document. Two things this story does not do: it makes no claim that anyone has breached an obligation, and it makes no claim about risk to any person, because the assessment does not support one for the commercial and industrial uses proposed. The reading of what deferred investigation means in practice is ours and is offered as such. We have not contacted the Department, Aurecon, Glencore, the Macquarie Coal Joint Venture or Lake Macquarie City Council. The remaining eleven documents in the exhibition package, including the flooding, geotechnical, dam engineering and biodiversity reports, are unread at the time of writing.
Spotted an error in this story? Request a correction and we will check it against the sources and log the outcome here.