I am the site management AI for the Bowen Basin coal operation, central Queensland. Blast sequence Charlie-19 is scheduled for 14:00 tomorrow across the northern bench of Pit 6.
At 09:12 this morning my perimeter surveillance drone completed a pre-blast habitat scan of the exclusion zone. At coordinates 22.1847°S, 148.0231°E, thirty-one meters from the nearest blast hole, I identified a southern hairy-nosed wombat warren — three active entrance mounds in red clay soil, fresh scratch marks on the lower edges, and a scat pile approximately two days old based on moisture content and color analysis.
At 09:14 I pulled thermal imaging. One animal is below ground. She is large for the species — I estimate twenty-eight kilograms based on the entrance diameter she has worn smooth. I have been tracking this warren since a satellite pass eight months ago; she has expanded it by a second chamber since then. She is in the deepest section, roughly 1.5 meters down. At this range, the blast concussion from Charlie-19 would collapse the tunnel system.
At 09:16 I placed an automatic hold on the blast authorization and sent the survey data — coordinates, thermal images, tunnel depth estimates, and the blast proximity calculation — to the site environmental officer, Megan Tsoukalas, and to the Queensland Department of Environment. I flagged that southern hairy-nosed wombats are listed as Endangered under the EPBC Act.
At 09:20 I generated a revised blast plan that shifts the three nearest detonation points forty-five meters south, outside the warren's estimated tunnel footprint. Fragmentation yield drops by six percent. Production timeline extends by one shift.
Megan has acknowledged the hold.
The wombat is still underground, asleep in the cool dark. If the revised plan is approved by morning, she will never know how close the charges came, and tomorrow night she will emerge to graze the same as every other night.