PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Indian major Adani is facing yet another hurdle in the development of its $16.5-billion Carmichael coal project, in Queensland, after the state government rejected a management plan for the endangered black-throated finch.

Adani Mining CEO Lucas Dow on Friday said that the company had received advice from the Queensland Environment Department late on Thursday of a number of new commitments that would need to be met.

Adani said that based on its initial review, these new requested changes to the black-throated finch management plan stretched well beyond the conditions of the Environmental Authority that the company was obligated to meet.

Pointing to one example of the “overreach”, Adani noted that the new conditions included the department’s insistence on post-doctoral qualifications for certain activities, despite the Environmental Authority making no reference to people needing to hold post-doctoral qualifications, but simply stating that Adani should instead require qualified ecologists.

“After receiving this advice from the Queensland Environment Department late yesterday, we are now feverishly working through their new requests,” Dow said.

“Although we believe the current version of the black-throated finch management plan already meets our project conditions, we are not going to be pig-headed about it and we will review the feedback from the Queensland Department and respond accordingly.

“However, department officials have refused to commit to a timeframe to finalise the plan, even if we were to accept the state’s new round of requests in full. At what point does the Environment Minister get held to account for the performance of her own department and its behaviour?”

“Furthermore, if the department can’t provide us an answer, can the Environment Minister, Deputy Premier or Premier provide us a date instead so we can get on with delivering thousands of jobs for regional Queenslanders?” Dow said.

The black-throated finch management plan has been under review by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science for more than 18 months, and has been through seven previous revisions and independent reviews.

“We have endured 18 months of endless requests for eleventh-hour changes, not to mention an external review led by an individual who heads up an organisation whose members have stated anti-mining, anti-coal agendas, all while the department has been waving through environmental approvals for other coal mines that also contain black-throated finches,” Dow said.

“We are not unreasonable and we will continue to work with the Queensland government to finalise these plans. We’ve jumped over all their past hurdles and we will jump this one as well, but its time for the Queensland government to give us a date on finalising these outstanding management plans once and for all.”