BSA welcomes gas slow-down
14 July 2010
The Basin Sustainability Alliance has welcomed Environment Minister Peter Garrett’s call for more information before federal approval can be given to Santos and BG for LNG Projects at Gladstone and Curtis Island. This group represents landholder and community concerns across the Surat Basin over the “unrestrained development of the coal seam gas industry in Queensland”.
Chair of the Basin Sustainability Alliance Mr Ian Hayllor said the coal seam gas industry has been steaming ahead in Queensland with an alarming lack of monitoring and research.
“Under the current systems, there is a real danger that coal seam gas development will impact on communities, health, damage vital natural resources, and put at risk food and fibre production for future generations,” he said.
“Mr Garrett’s decision is a good sign that landholder and community concerns about the rapid development of this industry are finally being heard.”
Mr Hayllor said the Basin Sustainability Alliance’s key concern about the industry was the unlimited amount of water the coal seam gas companies can take from groundwater resources, and the impact this could potentially have on the Great Artesian Basin.
“Mr Garrett says he has concerns about the impact these projects may have on the Great Barrier Reef. We also have another ‘great’ natural resource to protect – that is the Great Artesian Basin.
“Many people may not realise that coal seam gas companies have the freedom to take whatever water they need out from underground in order to extract the coal seam gas.
“Based on how many wells we believe are planned, these companies could be taking out something like 350,000 megalitres of water per year – that’s about two-thirds of the Sydney Harbour.
“This groundwater is the lifeblood of many rural communities. More than 200,000 people in our rural and regional towns rely on this water. It’s used for drinking and in homes; often this groundwater is their only water source. Just as importantly, food crops are irrigated with Great Artesian Basin water, and animals such as beef cattle, sheep, chickens, and pigs drink this water.”
Mr Hayllor said the water in the Great Artesian Basin was already fully allocated under a Resource Operations Plan aimed at long term sustainability of this resource, and yet the coal seam gas companies are exempt from this Plan.
“Pumping hundreds of million of litres of water from an already fully allocated water resource is not sustainable and will cause significant long term environmental harm.
Mr Hayllor said landholders also had other concerns about industry practices.
“We have a real fear that the fracking process used to release the gas will cause connectivity between aquifers and the possible draining of aquifers that supply water to communities, livestock and business across much of inland Queensland.
“The million of tonnes of salt being brought to the surface through the gas extraction process is also bad news for the environment.”
Currently there is no independent monitoring and the Basin Sustainability Alliance believes no one is really looking at the cumulative impacts of putting tens of thousands of wells across the Surat Basin region.
Coal seam gas projects are getting conditional approval from the State Government despite the fact that various proponents are highlighting their impacts in their own Environmental Impact Statements.
Mr Hayllor stressed that the Basin Sustainability Alliance is not against the coal seam gas industry – it just wants Government to get the balance right using science to prove the future sustainability of natural assets such as the Great Artesian Basin and the Great Barrier Reef.
“We recognise that the gas and energy industries are important to the Queensland economy but we urge all levels of government on all sides of politics to think very carefully about the implications of proceeding with these projects before proper research is done.
“We don’t want a Gulf of Mexico disaster here.
“We have to get the monitoring, research and regulatory framework right before we steam ahead. If we go forward too quickly we risk the long-term security of the quantity and quality of this water. Once it is gone, we cannot get it back.”
