Water Table

23% of Victoria's water is used by the LaTrobe Valley power generators. Some of it is used by the steam turbines but the majority is used in the mining process. Water is used in mining to damp down the roads as dust suppression and to soak the brown coal (lignite) to reduce the chance of a runaway fires that occur from time to time and large amounts of water are pumped out of the mine pit.

Mining of the brown coal removes a vast weight from the landscape and the difference in weight distribution causes the bottom of the mine to bow upwards. Land surrounding the mines still bears the weight of earth and brown coal pressing down which pressurises the ground water. In turn the ground water seeks a way out and finds it at the site of the open pit mine. Huge amounts of water are extracted from the water table prevent the open pit mine from flooding, a process that consumes large amounts of energy in itself.

Such massive volumes of ground water are removed that the water table lowers, impacting farming, irrigators and trees.

Subsidence

As vast amounts of ground water are removed the surface of the LaTrobe Valley, especially around the mine sites, is subsiding. The process is a gradual one and is rather even in it's effect meaning that the impact upon the built environment is not greatly adverse however the LaTrobe Valley is slowly 'sinking'.

Pollution

Huge amounts of highly toxic substances enter the air water and land from power generators in the LaTrobe Valley. The National Pollutants Inventory (NPI) lists some of them (many are not measured) at the NPI website. Included in the list are large amounts of arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, copper, fluoride, lead, manganese, mercury, hydrochloric acid, nickel, sulphur (acid rain) and zinc.
Source: http://www.npi.gov.au/cgi-bin/npireport.pl?proc=location_detail;instance=public;year=2007;loc_type=npi_airshed;loc_npi_airshed=644
Hazelwood being the worst polluting power station in the developed world generates a long shopping list of pollutants: Was at: http://www.npi.gov.au/cgi-bin/npireport.pl

Cancer

Asbestos was used widely in the construction of the LaTrobe Valley's power stations. Asbestosis is a major health concern in the LaTrobe valley where the rate of asbestos disease (mesothelioma) among power industry workers was found to be seven times the national average. (Victorian State Government study, 2001)
Information on the risks was hidden from those affected; "In the Latrobe Valley, however, progress in this area continues to be difficult due to the history of suppression of hazard information and denial of asbestos-relatedness of disease,..." (Work and Health in the Latrobe Valley, School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne)
Estimates based on the national Mesothelioma Register indicate that power station workers exposed thirty to fifty years ago (in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia) have the second highest lifetime mesothelioma risk at 11.8 per cent (~one in eight), surpassed only by those who worked in the infamous mines or mills of Wittenoom in Western Australia.

Farms, Roads, Rivers & Towns

The scale of open pit mines in the LaTrobe Valley is so large and given such importance that everything in the landscape gives way to it. Farmland is forsaken, roads are re-routed, rivers are diverted and even towns are relocated to allow the miners access to the wet brown coal. What is left behind is a huge open pit with little prospect of any agricultural, social or environmental value.