Call for energy giant AGL to face criminal charges over coal ash spill

Conservationists allege company has breached its environmental licence 52 times at its NSW Bayswater power station site in the past five years

Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, AGL, will pay a $1m penalty for a coal ash spill at a creek in the Hunter region of New South Wales, but environmentalists say the company should have faced criminal prosecution.

The incident occurred at the Bayswater power station near Muswellbrook in September 2019 when a pipeline transporting fly ash – a waste product from burning coal – burst, causing 1,440 cubic metres of hazardous slurry to leak into the dry bed of Bayswater Creek.

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