Yallourn Site Visit

About Yallourn and Energy Australia 

Yallourn has helped power the lives of Australians for over 100 years. EnergyAustralia is committed to honouring this proud history as it works towards closing the power station and brown coal mine in June 2028. Yallourn’s retirement provides once in a lifetime opportunity to reimagine the land as a place of renewal, where nature, people, and culture can come together, providing ongoing economic opportunities for the Latrobe Valley.

Rehabilitation of the Yallourn Mine aims to satisfy the vision: To transform the Yallourn site into a landscape that enables ongoing prosperity and amenity for all. One that is an example of what can be achieved when business, government, communities, and custodians of the land work together.

The plan is to make the mine site safe, stable and sustainable by filling the mine voids with water. The main aspects of the rehabilitation project include:

• Carefully filling the mine voids with water, to approximately reduced level (RL) 37m. This will require approximately 665 gigalitres (GL) of water.
• Maintain the Morwell River Diversion (MRD) in its current location with some improvement works to support longer term stability.
• Reshaping the mine walls (batters) to create the final landform that has long-term safety and stability.
• Protection of existing conservation areas.
• Removal of surface water diversions that have been required during operations. This will reinstate natural flow directions of rainfall run-off allowing water to enter the pit and improving ground stability.
• Construction of spillways in the MRD to allow Morwell River and Latrobe River flood flows to enter the pit lakes during major flood events to protect the MRD from excessive water.
• Construction of a lake overflow in the northeast corner of the East Field to allow excess water during flooding to safely spill into the Latrobe River.

Since the 1990s, mine rehabilitation has been progressing towards the concept of a full pit lake, with substantial progressive rehabilitation integrated into the mine’s operations to facilitate this final outcome. To date EnergyAustralia have planted over 377,500 seedlings in their rehabilitation and conservation areas. Each year, more land is rehabilitated than disturbed, with over 1,600 hectares of restoration completed compared to 1,345 hectares of disturbance. They have reduced the exposed coal area from 368 to 237 hectares over the last 11 years, reducing fire and dust risk.

At Yallourn Mine, we are proud of our commitment to environmental sustainability and the positive impact of our rehabilitation efforts. With an extensive number of plants already in the ground, progressively reshaping and restoring land, and pit lake planning progressing, we are well on our way to rehabilitating the site.