In what is seen by some as an unprecedented move with “irreversible consequences,” the Queensland government has just signed a controversial $21bn unlimited 60-year water licence to Adani’s Carmichael coalmine.

The licence, signed a day after Cyclone Debbie tore through the state’s north, gives Adani Mining leave to extract water from or near the Betts Creek formation when removing or draining water from the mine.

Environmental and legal groups are up in arms about this move as they say that the company is being given preferential treatment by Government.

“Certainly the severe implications are that if the groundwater is taken, then it’s not available for other more long-term or sustainable uses,” said Jo-Anne Bragg, the chief executive and solicitor at the Environment Defenders Office Queensland. “This would be an irreversible serious consequence of these enormous coalmines.”

Adani’s permit is valid through to 2077, and the licence acknowledges this will “have an impact on the underground water levels in the region of the mine” both during and after the planned Carmichael coalmine’s years of operation.

More than 100 of the 270 conditions on the licence apply to groundwater, but the conditions provide neither volumetric limits on the amount of groundwater, nor any triggers to halt mining operations. It relies on a requirement that Adani itself monitor its project’s effects on water levels and respond with “make-good agreements” with any affected landholders.

Environmental and legal groups however say that “Our experience is that this is no substitute for sustainable water resources for landowners.”

According to an environmental impact statement, Adani predicts that by 2029 it will be drawing 26m litres of water a day, and about 355bn litres over its lifetime.

A campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation, Basha Stasak, said: “The primary concern is that there are no trigger thresholds or, if you prefer another word, impact thresholds, which require a cessation of mining. The concerns we have is that even at the levels they’re saying they need it’s not clear what the impacts would be.”

Adani’s water licence is not subject to the scrutiny measures brought in with amendments to Queensland’s Water Act last year, and this does not sit well with many, including Stasak, who said: “At minimum Adani should be required to play by the same rules as everyone else and not be given special treatment. We are not talking best practice we are talking minimum standard.”

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