A town in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales has vowed to continue fighting the battle against the expansion of a Rio Tinto coalmine. The village of Bulga lost its fight on Friday with the government’s planning and assessment commission, which approved the expansion of Mount Thorley-Warkworth open-cut mine. The planned expansion would bring it to within 2.6km of the town, home to about 350 people, and would prolong the mine’s operations by 20 years. NSW government suggests entire village be relocated for Rio Tinto coalmine Read more John Krey, a Bulga resident, said the decision did not mean the fight was over and the community was exploring legal avenues to overturn the decision. “This could be the beginning of the end for Bulga but we are committed to using civil disobedience, if necessary, to frustrate this expansion, both for Rio Tinto and any future buyer of the mine,” Krey said. The government had worked in the mine’s interests, even changing legislation to enable the approval, he said. The mine was originally approved in 2003 giving “Bulga a buffer zone, guaranteed by ministerial deed of agreement, but this was later taken away by the current government at Rio Tinto’s request”. “Premier Baird’s talk of finding ‘balance’ between communities and mining is cheap when they ignore all advice and common sense to ruin a historic village just to suit a multinational coal company. “If this mine extension goes ahead, 10% of the town will have the option to sell their homes and leave the area, while the rest of us have no option but to stay and suffer the crippling impacts of noise and dust.” The planning assessment commission, which gave conditional approval for the mine in October, said that “serious consideration” should be given to moving the entire town if the expansion went ahead, although the NSW government and Rio Tinto have dismissed the idea. The chief executive of the NSW Nature Conservation Council, Kate Smolski, said the mine expansion approval was a betrayal of Bulga residents and made a mockery of the state’s biodiversity offsets system. “Some of the woodlands that will be destroyed include areas Rio Tinto promised to protect in perpetuity to offset the losses caused by the development of the original mine,” she said. The mine expansion would destroy 611ha of native bushland, including three endangered ecological communities, the conservation council said. The mine’s general manager, Mark Rodgers, told the ABC that the approval was good news for the mine’s more than 1,000 workers. “Our workforce, especially before Christmas, have got some positive news and they can get on with managing their lives and focusing on the job and on their safety and it’s a really great outcome,” he said. The planning department has previously said that approving the expansion and the continuing work would generate $617m in state royalties.