NSW mining company fined for polluting

A mining company based in the NSW Hunter Valley has been fined $65,000 for water pollution.

Bulga Coal Management pleaded guilty in the Land and Environment Court to a charge of water pollution over an October 2011 incident in which a pipe broke and hundreds of litres of slurry leaked into a containment dam.

The slurry then flowed 250m into the nearby Nine Mile Creek bed, near Singleton.

Nearly 300m of the creek was smothered in coal tailings waste material, and in some areas it was up to 30 centimetres thick.

NSW Environment Protection Authority's (EPA) acting chief environmental regulator David Fowler welcomed the ruling.

"Not only did the tailings pollute Nine Mile Creek and smother aquatic organisms, but residue from the tailings were also left behind on the creek bed impacting on the creek's environment," he said.

Bulga Coal Management initially pleaded not guilty to the offence but later changed the plea to guilty.

The mining company has already spent nearly $300,000 on the clean-up operation and installed sensor alarms on the containment dam to prevent a repeat of the incident.

The company operates open-cut and underground mines at the Bulga Mine Complex, 15 kilometres southwest of Singleton.

The operations are managed by Xstrata.

Lock the Gate Alliance said the fine was larger than it had expected.

"We welcome that but what we'd really like is an assurance that something like this can't happen again," a spokesman said.