IT'S been a decade since South Korean state-owned corporation KEPCO paid more than $400 million to mining company Anglo American for a mining lease over the beautiful Bylong Valley between Denman and Mudgee.
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The valley, known for its agriculture and vital role in the development of Australia's thoroughbred breeding industry, had been coalmine-free to that point, although coal trains regularly snake through the valley towards Newcastle.
KEPCO almost immediately started to buy up parts of the valley as it launched its controversial plan to run an underground and open cut coalmine for 25 years, to produce up to 6.5 million tonnes of coal each year for the South Korean domestic market.
Ultimately, KEPCO would spend $115 million buying up Bylong properties, including the church, general store, school and historic Tarwyn Park, made famous by Peter Andrews and his Natural Sequence Farming method.
Locals called it the "silencing of dissent", after those who sold to KEPCO, under a process later criticised by a state planning commission, were obliged to sign confidentiality agreements precluding them from speaking.
A few weeks ago KEPCO advised the South Korean stock exchange that it was writing off the Bylong project, after it was refused by the NSW Independent Planning Commission last September, and despite the Australian arm of KEPCO seeking a judicial review of the decision. Analyst said the decision was not the biggest problem facing KEPCO, which is currently losing money on every unit of electricity it produces.
But it leaves Bylong Valley, and the 13,000 hectares of land bought up by KEPCO, in an even greater limbo than during the years locals fought a coalmine.
It is not clear what KEPCO is proposing to do with that land, now that the parent company has written the project off, and no one really expects the NSW government to get involved at this point.
But Mr Buckley, Greens MP David Shoebridge and Bylong resident Peter Grieve believe the government should take interest in what happens at Bylong, which remains a rich farming area.
KEPCO's decision to enter the Australian market in 2010 now looks like a big win for Anglo American at the height of the coalmine boom, but a $400 million gamble for KEPCO that hasn't paid off.
Issue: 39,525.
