While communities in regional Queensland were battling a drought crisis in 2017, Adani was granted a licence to drain an unlimited amount of Queensland’s groundwater. 

Water is our most precious resource, but the Adani Group is happily sacrificing critical water sources as it ruthlessly expands its global coal empire.   

In Australia, Queensland’s precious water will be squandered on Adani’s dirty coal mine which will destroy the Doongmabulla springs, a sacred site for the Wangan and Jagalingou people, and will drain billions of litres of groundwater and river water. 

In India, Adani will drain water from the sacred Ganges river for its Godda power plant, is planning to decimate a vital lagoon and wetland near Chennai, and has already destroyed critical groundwater resources for local villagers at Mundra. 

Critical water resources are under threat as Adani expands their coal interests around the world.

In Australia, Adani’s Carmichael coal project will:  

• Suck out at least 270 billion litres of groundwater over the life of the mine.
• Leave behind 6 unfilled coal pits that will drain Queensland’s precious groundwater, forever. (ref) 
• Threaten the ancient Doongmabulla springs - 160 wetlands that provide permanent water during drought. (ref:  EcoLogical 2017. Draft Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem Management Plan: Carmichael Coal Mine Project) Water experts say Adani’s coal mine could permanently drain these springs, and that Adani’s plans to protect them are worthless. The Doongmabulla springs are a rare desert oasis and the most important cultural site for the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners. 
• Drain 12.5 billion litres of water a year from the Suttor River to wash Adani’s coal and suppress dust on its mine site despite farmers being denied water from the same river. Adani’s plans to drain the Suttor River have been scuttled recently by a successful court challenge that found the Federal Government broke the law in its approval of Adani’s water plans.

Adani has helped itself to Queensland’s water and polluted other important water resources. While Queenslanders battled through a drought crisis in 2017, Adani was handed a water licence allowing it to take an unlimited amount of water for 60 years. Adani also polluted one of the largest coastal wetlands in Queensland, allowing coal-laden water pollution to flow into the Caley Valley wetlands, a haven for threatened species.

If Adani is allowed to go ahead, it will open up the Galilee Basin coal deposits for many more mines, all drawing on Queensland's limited water resources. The cumulative impacts of all these mines on the Great Artesian Basin has not been modelled. Once this water is gone it cannot be restored.

Adani’s power station at Mundra, India has destroyed mangroves in a conservation area, obstructed creeks and failed to stop salinity intrusion into groundwater by failing to line storage ponds, impacting the local community and fisheries, and allegedly contaminating drinking water. In Tamil Nadu, Adani are proposing to build a megaport in Pulicat by converting thousands of acres of sea and wetlands into land using dredged sand. Scientists and fisherfolk warn this proposed expansion will cause severe coastal erosion, greatly increase flooding risks for local villages, and destroy fisheries and freshwater resources including the ecologically sensitive Pulicat lake.