A SOUTH-WEST Victorian community is objecting to a mining company's proposal to search for brown coal over 500 square kilometres that includes the town of Deans Marsh.
In the latest bid to develop a Victorian brown coal export industry, Mantle Mining has applied to the state government for an exploratory licence for a region near the Otway Ranges, centred about 50 kilometres west of Geelong and 10 kilometres from the Great Ocean Road.
If granted, the licence would allow the company to explore coal reserves beneath private land. Land owners could negotiate for compensation for any property damage. A separate commercial licence would be needed before a mine was developed.
Those objecting to the proposal cite two grounds - that coalmining would damage agriculture and tourism, and that it would be perverse to cut new coalmines when the country was committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Roger Blake, a retired geologist who runs a Deans Marsh winery, said he knew of nobody in the local community in favour of an open cut coalmine.
''Why on earth would you come to the Otways for brown coal when we have so much accessible in the Latrobe Valley?'' Mr Blake said.
''There is nobody who would stand to gain from a mine going ahead, because they would only be getting farm-type property values and land is quite tightly held around here.''
Greens senator Richard Di Natale, a Deans Marsh resident, said creating a new greenhouse-intensive industry would be a backwards step. ''I think it is a head-in-the-sand approach if you believe that our future lies in exporting brown coal,'' he said.
Mantle Mining managing director Ian Kraemer said the company planned to use new drying technology to reduce emissions from burning brown coal. He said an export industry could lower the substantial emissions from new coal-fired power plants being built in China and India.
While the potential brown coal deposits in the Otways were small compared with those in Gippsland, Mr Kraemer said they could prove viable. Two small coalmines near Deans Marsh closed in the 1950s.
Mr Kraemer said it was important companies were encouraged to develop technology to cut emissions from brown coal. ''The energy demand on this planet is going to be immense,'' he said. ''We need to use every sort of renewable energy, but coal is also going to be used offshore.''
Mantle Mining has already been granted exploratory licences to drill for coal at Bacchus Marsh, west of Melbourne, and at Thorpdale in the Latrobe Valley.
Brown coal has rarely been exported, due to its high water content and flammability. In late 2009 the Brumby government abandoned a plan to allocate coal to be dried and sold to Indian power plants, in the face of political pressure.
A spokesman for State Resources Minister Michael O'Brien said consideration of the proposal would be transparent. Submissions on the proposal close on August 12.
Mr Blake has helped organise an information meeting to be addressed by Mr Kraemer at the Deans Marsh Memorial Hall tonight.
