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The NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC) may determine whether it is in the public interest for the Delta Group to extend the life of coal mines near Lake Macquarie before the private company is sentenced in the NSW Land and Environment Court (LEC) for causing catastrophic fish kills in the lake in 2022.
By Jacquelene Pearson
Delta Electricity Pty Ltd, the private Australian electricity generation company ultimately owned by the Czech-based family office investment group Sev.en Global Investments, has been working since 2021 on a state-significant proposal to “consolidate” its collieries under and near Lake Macquarie in NSW.
The colliery proposal was placed on public exhibition in 2022. That was the year Delta Power, the part of the Delta Group usually associated with the Vales Point Power Station, caused a mass fish kill by failing to properly maintain its chlorine dosing plant at the power station.
Over the next couple of months Delta’s colliery proposal and its sentencing for the fish kills are likely to collide. There’s not yet a date for the sentencing and the colliery extension is now in the hands of the IPC.
Community and environmental groups will expect the fish kill judgement to be considered by the IPC when determining whether the two-year mining extension is approved, but the commission may consider the case judgement and sentence outside its remit.
Setting the scene
On 16 December 2025, the NSW Minister for Planning, Paul Scully, referred the decision on whether to extend the life of Delta’s Mannering and Chain Valley collieries to the NSW Independent Planning Commission (IPC).
On 23 December 2025, Delta Electricity was found guilty in the LEC of an offence against section 64(1) of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (NSW). Its actions were found to have caused the 2022 fish kills.
The matter was listed before the LEC list judge on 6 February 2026 to obtain a date for a hearing on sentence and for the making of directions in relation to preparation for the hearing on sentence.
The list judge did sit on 6 February but neither a date nor directions for sentencing could be set due to incomplete paperwork. At this stage there is not even confirmation of when the list judge will next consider the matter.
Even though sentencing has not happened, the judgement in the case Environment Protection Authority v Delta Power & Energy (Vales Point) Pty Ltd t/as Delta Electricity could be expected to play a part in the IPC’s decision making on the state-significant colliery application.
The IPC will be holding a two-day public hearing on the Delta SSD on 19 and 20 February. Registrations to speak at the hearing have now closed but the IPC will be accepting submissions until 27 February.
The IPC must determine whether the application to mine 5.6 million tonnes additional coal from under and around Lake Macquarie is in the public interest.
Fish kill charge
The prosecution in the fish kill case was brought by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) against Delta Power and Energy (Vales Point) Pty Ltd (trading as Delta Electricity), the operator of the Vales Point Power Station.
The case related to two mass fish kill events in August and September 2022, where an estimated 15,000 fish and rays (including whitespotted eagle rays) were found dead on the shores of Wyee Bay in Lake Macquarie.
Delta was charged with a breach of its Environment Protection License (EPL) under Section 64 of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 (POEO Act). The EPA alleged that the company failed to maintain its chlorine dosing plant in a “proper and efficient condition”.
The trial wrapped up in December 2024, and it took another year for Justice Pritchard’s judgement to be released.
The verdict
The court found Delta Electricity guilty of a significant environmental breach. Justice Pritchard was scathing of Delta’s failings to fulfil its responsibilities as a holder of a NSW EPL to operate Vales Point Power Station.
The court found:
- The cause: a faulty valve within the power station’s chlorine dosing plant failed, leading to the unintended and concentrated discharge of sodium hypochlorite (commonly known as liquid bleach) into Wyee Bay.
- Environmental impact: the discharge of this concentrated chemical was directly responsible for the sudden and catastrophic death of thousands of aquatic animals.
- Maintenance failure: the evidence established that the equipment had not been maintained to the standard required by the company’s operating license.
Justice Pritchard determined that the prosecutor had proven the case beyond reasonable doubt. Key points in the reasoning included:
- Causation: the timing of the equipment failure coincided precisely with the onset of the fish kills.
- Exclusion of other factors: the Court rejected alternative theories regarding the fish deaths, finding there was “no reasonable explanation or hypothesis consistent with all the established facts considered together, other than the defendant’s guilt of the offence charged.”
- Regulatory responsibility: the judgment emphasised that holders of EPLs have a non-delegable duty to ensure their infrastructure is maintained to prevent environmental harm, particularly when handling toxic substances near sensitive ecosystems.
We won’t know the consequences of the verdict until the sentence hearing takes place, but we do know the maximum penalty for the offence is $1 million and the court may apply other additional orders such as publication orders and/or environmental restoration projects.
This case was the first EPA prosecution against NSW coal-fired power station in over 10 years, and it is likely to want to make an example of Delta.
Justice Pritchard’s judgement was notably firm, particularly in relation to the avoidable nature of the equipment failure and resulting ecological damage. She emphasised that the breach was not a minor technicality but a failure of fundamental operational duties.
“The failure to maintain the chlorine dosing plant in a proper and efficient condition was not merely a technical oversight; it was a fundamental breakdown in the defendant’s environmental safeguard systems,” the Pritchard judgement said.
“The defendant’s reliance on reactive rather than rigorous proactive maintenance for a component as critical as the chlorine valve created a risk that was as foreseeable as it was preventable.
“The scale of the mortality—comprising approximately 15,000 fish and rays—represents a significant and distressing impact on the biodiversity of Lake Macquarie. The suddenness and magnitude of the kill speak to the high concentration of the toxicant released.
“The loss of whitespotted eagle rays, in particular, highlights the indiscriminate nature of the chemical discharge and its lethal efficacy within the localised marine environment.”
The Court addressed the high standard expected of industrial operators holding environmental licenses.
“EPLs are not mere administrative hurdles; they are the primary mechanism by which the community’s interest in a healthy environment is protected. To breach a condition of such a license is to undermine the very framework of environmental regulation in this state.
“Licensees are entrusted with the stewardship of the natural environment adjacent to their operations; that trust is betrayed when basic maintenance protocols are neglected in favour of operational convenience.”
Worthy of coal mine extension?
The recurring theme throughout the judgment was that Delta Electricity’s “lack of diligence” transformed a manageable industrial process into an ecological disaster. The seriousness was elevated because the faulty valve was part of a system designed specifically to handle hazardous chemicals.
Meanwhile, a State Significant Development Application from Delta, to extend the life of the collieries that supply the malfeasant power station, has made it to the NSW IPC for deliberation and is currently on public exhibition.
The project seeks to consolidate the existing approvals of the Chain Valley Colliery and Mannering Colliery under a single, contemporary consent; extend the mine life by two years to 31 December 2029; increase throughput at the Mannering Colliery pit top from 2.1 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) to 2. 8 Mtpa; and allow additional secondary coal extraction within approved mining areas beneath Lake Macquarie.
According to the assessment report from DPHI, “the project is designed to ensure continuity of coal supply to the adjacent Vales Point Power Station until what was its planned closure in 2029, aligning the mine’s operational life with the power station and securing ongoing local employment.
“The Department notes that in March 2023 (after this project was lodged), it was announced that Vales Point Power Station closure would be delayed four years to 2033. The project does not involve expansion beyond current mining boundaries nor does it introduce new coal transport routes.
“…It provides a secure and local coal supply to the VPPS, reduces reliance on external suppliers, and avoids additional greenhouse gas emissions and road transport impacts associated with sourcing coal from other regions. There are clear benefits to having a domestic supply to assist with power generation during the transition to renewables period.”
In its fish kill case against Delta, the EPA is likely to ask for a comprehensive suite of penalties and orders from the LEC to address both the ecological damage and the public interest. Meanwhile, the EPA appears quite comfortable for the same company to have the life of its collieries at Lake Macquarie “consolidated” with little additional environmental oversight.
Community concerns not addressed
Environmental and community groups want the IPC to refuse the state-significant application on the grounds that it is not in the public interest due to environmental risks, climate risk and human health risks.
Future Sooner, a grassroots public health advocacy group and registered charity, has stated that Delta’s proposal to extend its collieries under Lake Macquarie fails the public interest test on four major grounds and must be refused by the IPC.
“It’s four years since the proposal was on exhibition – plenty of time for Delta to address the stakeholder issues – but measures have not been put in place to deal with overwhelming public concerns about: air quality; climate change and greenhouse gas emissions; impacts on water resources, on soil and land capability; and biodiversity. Delta’s response to substantial concerns raised by the public and experts did nothing to address those issues,” says Future Sooner spokesperson, Gary Blaschke OAM.
“The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure’s (DPHI) draft consent conditions will exacerbate some problems including transporting coal by road. The DPHI’s recommended ‘consolidated and updated air quality limits’ are laughable given most of the extra coal mined will be burned at the aged Vales Point Power Station.
“Even the NSW EPA waved this project through whilst knowing Delta is exempt from stringent new air pollution standards to be applied in 2027 and 2030. The 5.6 million tonnes of extra coal would fuel Vales Point which is exempt from higher clean air regulations because it was due to close in 2028.
“Future Sooner continues to watch successive NSW Governments reward private coal companies for environmental and public health destruction. The Minns Government underestimates our community’s commitment to stopping air pollution, protecting regional biodiversity and our vulnerability to the real impacts of coal-driven climate change.
“It beggars belief that the IPC could approve any proposals from Delta when it is about to be sentenced in the NSW Land and Environment Court for two massive fish kills in Lake Macquarie.
“This colliery consolidation proposal will lead to the emission of up to 24 million more tonnes of CO2 in our atmosphere and thousands of additional tonnes of the toxic and carcinogenic elements that the communities around the collieries and the power station have been living with, and dying from, for decades.
“The approval of this colliery extension by the IPC would be proof of the NSW Government’s failure to exercise its duty of care to its citizens and the environment. It must not go ahead.”
Clean air – I mean hands
When Minister Scully referred the collieries proposal to the IPC last December, he did so on the basis that more than 50 submissions had objected to the proposal back in 2022.
A letter from the director of DPHI to the chair of the IPC said that the department had assessed the environmental, social and economic impacts but not made an overall recommendation.
This means the Minister has been able to wash his hands of the decision in the leadup to the March 2027 state election and it will be up to the IPC to determine the application.
Air quality and human health, including dust and cumulative emissions with Vales Point Power Station, were raised as a key issues in community objections to the proposal in 2022. In fact, in its analysis of the 2022 public consultation the DPHI assessment report said: “The dominant issue raised in submissions were concerns about air quality impacts and associated human health impacts, cumulative air quality impacts with Vales Point Power Station and emissions from coal transport.”
The above table was snipped from the report. Closely following were concerns about climate change and additional greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to impacts to Australia’s climate change commitments. Impacts to water resources predominately focused on impacts of the project on Lake Macquarie.
According to the DPHI’s assessment report, Delta responded to the community’s concerns with a Submissions Report (March 2023) and further technical information, particularly addressing subsidence, noise, greenhouse gas emissions and water quality.
The Department also sought independent expert advice through the Independent Expert Advisory Panel for Mining on subsidence management and the greenhouse gas assessment.
No additional information was sought to address air quality even though it was the community’s primary concern. The DPHI assessment report concluded that the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) exhibited in 2022 adequately addressed all the air quality concerns that had been raised in submissions including those from experts who had specifically critiqued the air quality provisions in the EIS as being inadequate.
Consent conditions
Whilst not coming to a conclusion about the project itself, the DPHI was good enough to draft some conditions of consent, just in case the IPC approved the application.
There’s contradictory information in the conditions of consent about how the coal is going to be transported from the colliery to Vales Point. Whilst most will be delivered via conveyor belt, the Department would be happy for some to be moved via private and public roads.
Some of the coal may end up being transported on public roads – up to 270 laden coal trucks per day and 32 per hour, or 16 per hour during peak hour periods, according to the draft conditions of consent.
The conditions of consent would also allow the road transport 660,000 tonnes of coal to Newcastle Port for export and 180,000 tonnes to other domestic customers.
The additional amount of coal to be extracted from both collieries over the life of the extension would be 5.6 million tonnes. There’s an extended subsidence zone between Morriset and Wyee Point and secondary works proposed under the lake.
“The applicant considers that consolidation of the approvals for the project would reduce administrative and regulatory processes and improve alignment between the operations.
“The review and consolidation of the existing Chain Valley Colliery and Mannering Colliery consents would provide a single contemporised approval that clarifies regulatory obligations to the community,” the assessment report said.
That statement sounds promising in terms of Delta’s regulatory obligations being set out clearly.
However, in addition to not requiring more effort to address the community’s air pollution concerns, Delta has also been granted a Biodiversity Development Assessment Report (BDAR) waiver.
It appears that, in NSW, a company can be found guilty of major environmental harm on one hand and given exclusions from biodiversity protections on the other.
Section 7.9(2) of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 (BC Act) requires all SSD applications to be accompanied by a Biodiversity Development Assessment Report (BDAR) unless the Planning Agency Head and the Environment Agency Head determine that the project is not likely to have any significant impact on biodiversity values.
A BDAR waiver request was submitted to the Department on 6 June 2025 and the Environment Agency Head and the Director Energy and Resource Assessments as delegate of the Planning Secretary, determined that the development was “not likely to have any significant impact on biodiversity values” so the waiver was granted.
It appears there are more green flags than red from NSW authorities when it comes to the approval of the colliery consolidation.
With that stance in mind, let’s revisit some of the key findings from the fish kill judgement. Can the IPC justify approving a state significant mining application for an applicant that has:
- Failed to maintain equipment and infrastructure in a “proper and efficient condition”.
- Not maintained equipment to the standard required by the company’s operating license
- Failed to fulfil its responsibilities as a holder of a NSW EPL
There has been no suggestion that Delta would be subject to any additional regulatory oversight at the collieries if the SSD was approved. There has been no mention of subjecting the proponent’s mines to mandatory independent maintenance orders of critical infrastructure to ensure they are maintained in proper and efficient condition.
Past performance is no indicator of future performance as they say in the investment world but, when it comes to major issues such as environmental and public health, carbon emissions and biodiversity, when should the precautionary principle apply?
Can a minority Labor Government that came to power in 2023 on the promise of greater environmental stewardship afford to give Delta another two years of mining under Lake Macquarie without considering the LEC’s findings and putting some tougher safeguards in place?
The judgment was clear, holders of EPLs have a non-negotiable duty to operate in a manner to prevent environmental harm. In fact, the DPHI’s draft conditions of consent for the colliery consolidation include the following definition of “material harm”:
Can the IPC grant consent and deem it to be in the public interest to a proponent who has already committed material harm?
WHAT YOU CAN DO
If you are interested in learning more about Delta, its coal mines, Vales Point Power Station and the state significant development, here’s some additional reading.
The Independent Planning Commission is holding public hearings and taking submissions on Delta’s state significant development application to extend its collieries
The SSD has been running since 2021 and all the documents are available on the NSW Planning Portal.
The NSW Nature Conservation Council has put a submission guide together if you’d like to make a submission.
Future Sooner has an interactive submission template that you can use if you are particularly concerned about air pollution and impacts on human health.
Delta Electricity is a privately owned Australian electricity generation company, 100% owned by the Czech-based family office investment group, Sev.en Global Investments.
Following its acquisition in December 2022, Delta operates as a key part of Sev.en’s Australian portfolio, focusing on thermal coal power generation and energy transition projects.
Corporate Structure and Ownership (As of 2026)
Ultimate Owner: Sev.en Global Investments (Czech Republic).
Parent Company: Delta Electricity Pty Ltd (often referred to as the “Delta Group” or via its former owner, Sunset Power International).
Key Operations:
Vales Point Power Station: Located in the Hunter/Lake Macquarie region of NSW, this is the primary asset (1,320 MW coal-fired station).
Chain Valley Colliery: Underground coal mine supplying the Vales Point Power Station.
Energy Storage Projects: Active development of battery energy storage, including a project at Vales Point.
Related Companies and Subsidiaries
The Delta Group includes several entities that manage different facets of its operations:
Delta Electricity Pty Ltd: The main operating entity.
Delta Coal: Manages the Chain Valley Colliery and coal supply operations.
Delta Power: Often referred to in conjunction with Vales Point assets.
Sunset Power International: The entity that originally purchased Delta from the NSW Government in 2015 and subsequently sold it to Sev.en.
Leadership and Governance
Chief Executive: Richard Wrightson (appointed August 2023).
Management Team: Includes a CFO (Vince Azzopardi), Chief People Officer (Clair Osbourne), Company Secretary/General Counsel (Steve Gurney), and managers for energy markets and business improvement.
Key Strategic Context
Acquisition: Bought from Trevor St Baker and Brian Flannery’s private interests by Sev.en in December 2022 for a reported sum exceeding $200 million.
Focus: While heavily invested in coal, the company is managing the transition of its assets, with the Vales Point station currently slated for closure in 2029.
Competitors: Main competitors include AGL Energy and CS Energy.
