Office of Environment and Heritage and senior ecologist public servant resigns with disgust over corruption of mining and planning processes in NSW. Expert koala surveyor revealed previous 10,000 kolas in the Pilliga are threatened by extinction by the Narrabri Gas Project. Publishes open letter to Mike Baird.
My open resignation letter from OEH ....
19 January 2015
Robert Stokes,
Minister for the Environment
cc. Mike Baird, Pru Goward, Anthony Roberts
Dear Mr Stokes,
I was asked to provide to the Office of Environment and Heritage a letter of resignation from my position of Biodiversity Conservation Officer at the Newcastle Office. While I found my tenure with OEH to be largely rewarding, more recent developments in policy and legislation have seriously undermined the ability of OEH as a regulator to achieve positive environmental outcomes, despite the best intentions of myself and my well-informed colleagues.
So here is my resignation as I am unable to agree that improving our environment must come as second fiddle to ensuring that any mine or gas development proceed. The Mining SEPP makes a mockery of a transparent and ecologically sustainable planning process. It should also be concerning to the people of NSW, as it is to me, that the Department of Planning and OEH itself has been captured in the big coal and gas rush by promoting policies which will guarantee further losses of biodiversity, a situation which is not consistent with international or national environmental obligations. I have elaborated below.
While there was much anticipation regarding the OEH’s new ‘whole of government’ Framework for Biodiversity Assessment (FBA) and Offset Policy, it has been widely seen, both in OEH where hundreds of internal submissions were received with serious reservations about the new policy, and in the community, as a great leap backwards. In the current policy, no impact is so damaging that it cannot be approved, regardless of how close to extinction the ecosystem or wildlife species being harmed is, and habitat for species threatened with extinction could be replaced or "offset" with almost entirely different habitat. There are no thresholds for what is adequate and what is not. The watering down of the concept of ‘like-for-like’ for offsets make that concept now virtually meaningless.
The current offset policy is also flawed with respect to protecting our biodiversity because under this policy, if offset areas can't be found that actually replace or compensate for the clearing mining want to do, they can just negotiate other arrangements with OEH, including the payment of money and OEH will sort out the details. But in places like the Hunter Valley, the options to retire those credits are few and far between. There is no requirement for feasibility assessments on whether those offset requirements can be met because there is no threshold on what is acceptable.
We are condemning a suite of ecosystems and species to extinction. As a result of new major projects, it is likely we will see the extinction process accelerate for species such as the Koala and Regent Honeyeater and ecological communities such as the Warkworth Sands Woodland. This is not helped by the condition in the FBA that assessments of impact will now be framed across an entire region and not at the local scale. It seems that consideration of the local scale of impact (the basic way impact on populations should be assessed) is not in favour by your government. I look with concern at your recent Biodiversity Legislation Review and noticed that it again states that impacts on biodiversity should be done at a ‘regional or state scale’. Extinctions start at the local scale. Surely in 2015 we could have an environmental planning process which is capable of looking at all scales of impact?
As well, the recommendation in the Review to abolish the Native Vegetation Act is just pandering to a vocal minority of landowners who oppose any kind of government regulation. In fact all that was needed was to introduce a mechanism by which landowners could receive realistic compensation for protecting native vegetation. It is shameful that this is the government’s response to the murder of Glen Turner by a nutter while he was carrying out his duty for the citizens of this state.
For the last two years I have been undertaking mostly mining assessments, a challenging task at the best of times, considering the impacts of mining on the environment. This task was made more difficult by the way the Planning Department handed out conditions of approval. OEH has the technical skills to deal with these issues and advice DPE on biodiversity and cultural heritage matters. However repeatedly these conditions are altered by DPE (often with no feedback to OEH) for example by the insertion of terms like ‘negligible’ or ‘minor’ as impact thresholds. These terms cannot be regulated as they lack any kind of quantification. As a result, subsidence disasters like Mt Sugarloaf and damage to sensitive groundwater dependent and wetland communities WILL occur again. Sometimes other ecological details in OEH recommendations have been changed in the approval conditions, seemingly, to suit the goals of the mining company. I am happy to discuss with you some of the specifics in relation to this.
The Mining SEPP and its more recent amendments also make a mockery of a transparent assessment process by placing greater emphasis on economic outcomes over environmental and social ones and the introduction of an offset ‘certification’ mechanism which undermines NSW offset policy by accepting a standard for offsets as ‘adequate’ - though what is adequate and what isn’t is open to conjecture.
Clear evidence of the mining sector’s infiltration into the planning system in NSW is the acceptance by OEH of offsets for mining rehabilitation. That is, companies can now receive upfront biodiversity credits for what are currently areas of mine pit to offset the removal of remnant vegetation. While some have hailed this as a new standard for mine rehabilitation, the creation of ecosystems (or even plant community types) on areas where there is no natural substrate is not supported by any scientific evidence and should not have been put into the new offset policy which is supposed to be a quantifiable assessment of biodiversity credits.
OEH has supported and promoted the Upper Hunter Strategic Assessment for the coal industry, which will provide an umbrella approval for the Commonwealth in the Hunter over the next 20 years. Given the failings of the current offset policy in NSW and the extent of the proposals given to OEH, I doubt this process will be welcomed by the community once they discover the scope of what is being proposed and the expected loss of biodiversity in the Hunter that this will entail.
Australia, and the world, is in a time of transition in the way we generate energy and manage our environment. The fact that NSW seems to going backwards at a time when innovation and strong measures to prevent further environmental degradation need to be embraced is a great disappointment to myself and many others. I believe that not only people have a right to live in this world with a healthy environment, so do the other species we share this world with. They are our customers too. As custodians of our environment it appears we are still going to fail. It’s time to change this situation around and I will be working in the future to achieve this.
As there is so much information across the internet in regards to CSG. Most of it appears within the Facebook platform. It makes it very difficult to provide a system where those outside Facebook can see it.
I can only suggest the following.
Open an account with Facebook. Remain anon if you like you only have to fill in as little information as you like. You do not have to share anything.
Then you come across pages that have the following on them and you can login and be kept up to date with the information on that page.
The feed below will not show up unless your logged into Facebook.
The fight over coal seam gas extraction is tearing the Narrabri community apart as farmers and environmentalists dig in and project operator Santos insists the protesters have it all wrong.
#Pilliga
BEN POTTER
Apocalyptic language doesn’t come easily to successful farmers such as Jeff Carolan, a portly, silver-haired cotton grower from out of Wee Waa, north-west of Narrabri in northern NSW. They have to be stoic to battle droughts and tempests, subsidised foreign rivals and fickle commodity markets, accepting the good and the bad, up and down the decades.
Yet when the conversation at Watson’s Kitchen in Narrabri turns to Santos’s contentious but lucrative Pilliga forest coal seam gas project, Carolan’s language turns positively nuclear.
“We really need to have a lot more science and a lot more certainty before we light the fuse under the atomic bomb,” Carolan tells AFR Weekend. “It’s no good lighting it and saying, ‘we have got to run’.”
Carolan is one of five farmers and a web developer sharing an upstairs table with me at the bakery, a popular meeting place on the main street of Narrabri, a bustling rural town on the banks of the Namoi River on the edge of the Liverpool Plains. They’re members of People for the Plains – a group of farmer activists loosely affiliated with the Lock the Gate Alliance – and dedicated to fighting this Pilliga gas project and others like it. Carolan’s family has been farming the fabled black soil for more than 120 years.
The farmers have invited me here to bend my ear on the iniquities and risks of extracting coal seam gas from the Pilliga forest, which lies just south of Narrabri and used to be called the Pilliga Scrub. Scrub or forest, its sandy red soil conceals vast quantities of coal seam gas that Santos is eager to harvest to avert a looming supply squeeze in NSW.
But the proposal is emotionally charged.
Anne Kennedy is a sweet, tenacious grandmother, who raises beef and crops near Coonamble, 150 kilometres south-west of Narrabri, and obligingly pays for my lunch. Ron Campey, a stocky, thoughtful man in his 60s, has a mixed farm 10 kilometres north-east of Narrabri. Sarah Ciesiolka, younger and more fashionably dressed, grows potatoes and peanuts six kilometres north of the project area. Kate Schwager is a web developer from near Wee Waa. Tony Pickard is a large, boisterous man who farms south of Narrabri, right in the Pilliga.
DRIVING A WEDGE THROUGH THE TOWN
They seem a congenial bunch of citizens. But they’re the heart of the local chapter of a protest movement that’s making life hell for Santos and other aspiring gas producers in NSW. The confrontation is driving a wedge into the community, even though Santos says it has no need to use the controversial hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – technique to get the gas to flow.
Farmers, including Kennedy’s 71-year-old husband Neil, have attached themselves to machinery and gates and got themselves arrested, alongside professional protesters from outside the shire. Anti-gas forces accuse pro-gas farmers and business folk of grabbing the money at the expense of the environment and farmers’ futures. Ciesiolka says she has been called a “f---ing c--t” in the street.
Ron Campey, who runs a mixed farm north-east of Narrabi, fears coal seam gas will ‘ruin our water’.
Photo: Margot Palmer
It’s tough on the other side, too. Pro-gas farmers and businesspeople, or even those just advocating an open mind, say there have been threats of business boycotts, harassment of workers doing their jobs for Santos contractors, even the cold shoulder for wives at the Narrabri races. A couple decline to go on the record for this article.
“Even outside of your business, if you were to say here ‘coal seam gas’ is a good idea or ‘I Like Santos’, you’d get a phone call from the anti-coal seam gas people and your wife may not be accepted in the group at the races,” Russell Stewart, president of the Narrabri Chamber of Commerce, says.
“It’s not country. You have got to respect other people’s views.”
WHAT PRICE ENERGY SECURITY?
Our most populous state is proving a hard nut to crack in the quest to secure the domestic energy supply. As coal seam gasfields nearer Sydney and the NSW coast – in the Hunter Valley, the Southern Highlands and Bentley, near Lismore – are placed out of reach because of resistance by farmers and green activists, the Pilliga is emerging as one of the front lines in the gas wars.
Panicked by the threat of gas shortages as soon as 2017, the NSW government has designated Pilliga gas a “strategic energy project” and pledged a decision on its future – a process that would usually take years – by next January. Gas prices have doubled as eastern Australia’s supplies, adequate for domestic needs, have been promised to three giant liquefied natural gas export plants being built at Gladstone, Queensland. By the time these are up and running, gas prices may have tripled or risen even more.
For the average east coast householder, power bills have nearly doubled in six years, even as usage has fallen. This is prompting more to cut their energy use and exploit subsidies to make their own power from the sun – exacerbating the centralised grid’s “death spiral”. And it’s leaving those wholly reliant on the grid angry and perplexed.
Price hikes so far owe more to soaring network charges and multiple regulatory flaws than raw energy costs. But soaring gas prices are making their mark. An Australian staple of the past half century – cheap and abundant energy – is becoming a thing of the past in a country still richly endowed with the stuff. NSW gas bills will jump nearly 18 per cent later this year, costing a typical household $155 to $225. Victorians, the heaviest gas users, face an even larger increase.
Manufacturers all over the eastern seaboard are screaming that they’re being gouged – if they can get a quote at all – and saying they’ll be forced out of business, costing Australia good jobs. Some are going to great lengths to secure gas; Orica paid $52.5 million to Strike Energy to fund appraisal and development of gas in the Cooper Basin. Dow Chemical and Manufacturing Australia have led a campaign to reserve some gas for domestic use. Even in WA, where gas is reserved, industry is paying export-linked prices.
The situation is just as dire elsewhere. As the US has become flush with cheap gas from the shale boom, helped by lightly regulated oil and gas states such as Texas, Louisiana and North Dakota, gas-starved Europe and Asia have lost their competitive edge. Even mighty Germany has lost billions of dollars in energy-intensive industry investments to America. Last year, Australia lost a billion-dollar Incitec Pivot plant to Louisiana, where gas and labour are cheaper and planning approvals swifter.
Santos employees at work on the banks of a waste water pond, part of the project in the Narrabri area.
Photo: Rob Homer
What price energy security? What trade-offs – with the environment, the water supply and farmers – should we make to win back our edge in cheap and abundant energy? What difference can Pilliga gas make to prices if exports dominate demand?
Unlike other states, NSW produces only a tiny fraction of its own gas needs and imports the bulk from outside its borders.
SAFETY IS PARAMOUNT, SANTOS SAYS
James Baulderstone, head of Santos’s eastern Australian operations, and Peter Mitchley, NSW general manager of energy, seem stunned that a project they say could supply half of those needs and avert the looming crisis gets such a hostile reception.
Hand on heart, they declare their drilling practices safe, the risk of well contamination negligible, Santos’s record impeccable and the jobs and other spin-offs from their $1 billion plus project sufficient to make it a no-brainer. Mostly, they try to advance the company’s cause with good humour.
“When those are full, Peter, I’d be willing to race you across the pond,” triathlete Baulderstone says to Mitchley on a Santos press tour of the newly constructed Leewood water treatment facility. Mitchley, a sometimes irascible South African, has been explaining that the water drawn from the coal seams to release the gas – and piped to these ponds – is mostly harmless brine, about a third as salty as seawater.
Santos has flown half a dozen reporters and photographers to Narrabri, plunked us in a bus, done a quick tour of key sites in the Pilliga and filled us with facts and figures in a bid to convince us that the project is safe and that any claims to the contrary are “misinformation”. It is an admission that the big corporation has been outflanked by the nimble and well-organised protesters. Sometimes, the frustration shows.
“I cannot make shit up as an executive responsible for the business,” Mitchley fumes at one point, about “wild assertions that get made” by the Wilderness Society green group and some farmers.
Naturally, the farmers and green protesters marshalled by Lock the Gate and the Wilderness Society don’t buy it. They might as well be speaking a different dialect to Santos and the pro-gas businessfolk from Narrabri shire. One side’s conversation is of world’s best practice well technology, gas supply balance, energy security, salt levels in brine from coal seams, parts per million of heavy metals, healthy treated water for farmers to reuse. The other’s is full of sinister references to toxic spills, threats to human health and livelihoods from well contamination, “betrayal” and “lies”.
They do agree that “science” must dictate the outcome – but they cannot agree on what that means. That’s a big problem. Non-scientists think of science as a hard discipline, objective, immutable, authoritative. Some science – calculating the force required to accelerate an object of x mass at a desired rate, say – is like that. Much isn’t. Predictions about nature and the impact of human activity are uncertain.
THE SCIENCE OF NATURE ISN’T DEFINITIVE
In the margins of doubt, people can pick and choose. Some reject the science of anthropogenic – human-induced – climate change, but want others to accept science that says extraction of coal seam gas or hydraulic fracturing of shale rock is safe in certain conditions. Others embrace the science of climate change, but reject scientific green lights for gas extraction.
Downtown Narrabri, a town divided into for and against the coal seam gas drilling ... even the wives of Santos contractors can get the cold shoulder at the races.
Photo: Dean Sewell
NSW Chief Scientist Mary O’Kane’s finding last month that “water quality issues [from coal mining and coal seam gas extraction in the Sydney Basin] can largely be managed through treatment works” is highly unlikely to placate opponents in the Pilliga. Brine spills from coal seams could damage flora and fauna, O’Kane found, but “dilution and the absence of high levels of toxic substances” would make it safe for human health, even during a downpour.
But her opinion is not categorical and deals with a different catchment. Says Campey, “The problem is there’s been no real scientific analysis of the Great Artesian Basin and the Pilliga.” The farmers are reserving judgment until O’Kane winds up her state-wide investigations later this year.
Carcinogens, heavy metals and harmful substances such as asbestos add another layer of menace and subjectivity to science. They awaken demons, contaminate people’s thinking and blind them to objective information that might tell them the levels are safe or the risk to humans remote.
Santos and other gas companies have earned headlines out of proportion to any identified danger to human health from such scares. Earlier this year, uranium and other heavy metals turned up in an isolated aquifer under a storage pond at Bibblewindi in the Pilliga, at concentrations roughly equal to the background level in the soil – but 20 times the safe drinking level.
Santos hydrogeologist Glenn Toogood says it would take more than 100,000 years for this dribble – it detected 10 litres a day – to reach the nearest drinking water supply at the flow rates identified by the NSW Environment Protection Authority. The low $1500 fine from the EPA reflects this, but the NSW opposition is inquiring into it.
Also this year, Origin Energy found that a sealant used in drilling fluids at its Australia Pacific LNG Project in Queensland sometimes contained asbestos; it suspended drilling while it obtained an alternative product. In 2010, the Queensland government had to defend its stewardship of the industry after benzene – a carcinogen – turned up in three wells at Arrow Energy’s coal seam gas project and eight wells at Australia Pacific LNG.
The Department of Environment and Resource Management said there was no evidence of any environmental harm or threat to water bores. Benzene and other so-called BTEX chemicals (toluene, ethylene and xylene) were used in fracking fluids at the time but are now banned in NSW.
FORMIDABLE ADVERSARIES
As the conversation at Watson’s Kitchen gets under way, it becomes clear why Baulderstone and Mitchley are finding the farmers formidable adversaries. The latter employ different styles, but don’t take any backward steps. Carolan and Kennedy are dignified but unyielding; Campey quietly spoken and intense. Ciesiolka seems more wary of AFR Weekend than the others, with the possible exception of Schwager, a campaign organiser from central casting, and the certain exception of Pickard.
Pickard, who sued Santos for allegedly contaminating his household well just the day before, is like a character from a Mark Twain story. When he makes a point, he leans forward and hurls it at me. Then he sits back in his chair to gauge its impact, folding his arms across his deep chest and composing his ruddy features into a satisfied, accusing glare. One of the first points Pickard makes is that he doesn’t trust newspaper people “because I have seen the crap that they come up with”. Kennedy tapes the entire two-hour conversation, putting me on my mettle.
James Baulderstone, vice-president of Santos’ eastern Australian operations, is a triathlete.
Photo: Philip Gostelow
The conversation proceeds pleasantly enough but the technical detail – to do with the Namoi River alluvial plain, aquifers, the Great Artesian Basin, the “southern recharge”, chemical spills, contaminated bores and so on – comes thick and fast.
What’s unmistakeable is that Santos is in for a long battle. The farmers do not trust Baulderstone, Mitchley or their local elected officials. Neither do they trust the NSW government – which seems more welcoming of Santos than of gas proponents closer to Sydney – nor its point man for coal seam gas, nor even the EPA. The perpetual circus at the NSW ICAC hardly promotes trust in the state’s politicians.
A ‘TOTAL BETRAYAL’
Carolan speaks of a “total betrayal” of people on the land by the state and local governments, especially National Party politicians who are supposed to be the farmers’ friends. He fears the government agencies charged with assessing the project are just going through the motions, that it’s a fait accompli.
The threat to the water supply is the crux of the farmers’ case. The “hydrogeology” varies from place to place. In the cotton-growing areas, the alluvial ground water used for irrigation and households runs to a depth of 130 to 200 metres, followed by about 200 metres of impermeable rock, and then the Great Artesian Basin,which is salty there and usable only for watering stock.
Below that lies another 200 metres of rock, then coal. In the project area, the sandstone Great Artesian Basin is close to the surface and runs to depths of about 250 metres. About 450 metres of impermeable basalt rock separates that aquifer from Hoskissons coal seam at about 700 metres, and another 300 metres of rock separates that coal seam from the Maules Creek coal formation.
To get the gas, Santos will have to drill vertically through the layers of sandstone and hard rock to 700 to 1000 metres. If the company gets the required approvals, it will drill about 850 wells in the Pilliga over the life of the project.
Santos will have pollution licences to allow it to release a certain amount of water from time to time, Jeff Carolan says. “I am very concerned that that is a first-class opportunity for ground-water contamination.”
Kennedy claims Santos will “ultimately” have to frack to get the last of the gas. Campey, a disenchanted member of Santos’s community consultative committee and former shareholder, fears coal seam gas will “ruin our water and poison us with fugitive emissions”. He calls Santos executives “blatant bloody liars” and defends farmers and protesters’ illegal tactics.
“How else can we get our feelings across?” he asks later that afternoon on a tour of some minor spill sites. “The government is not listening to us. Stupid bloody [Narrabri mayor Conrad] Bolton is not listening to us. We have run out of ways to express ourselves.”
Ciesiolka, a mother of three whose potato and peanut farm is just six kilometres from the project area, says darkly that evidence is only just emerging – courtesy of the national lobby Doctors for the Environment Australia – of “how dangerous this industry is” to human health, and that a drum of caesium-137 – a radioactive product of nuclear fission – was found on one of Santos’s Pilliga worksites.
Queensland’s Department of Health found no link between ill health and the Roma gas fields, and Santos says caesium-137 is routinely used in oil and gas drilling worldwide and safely secured in lead-lined drums.
ALL OR NOTHING
Campey insists federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane is “barking up the wrong tree” with his suggestion that states and producers give farmers a bigger cut of the royalties to thaw their opposition. He, Kennedy and Pickard insist they are not opposed to coal seam gas if – a big “if” given the difficulty of proving a negative – it can be shown to be safe. “All we are asking is that it be held over until such time as it can be proved not to damage the environment,” Pickard says.
Jeff Carolan, who grows cotton on his farm north-west of Narrabri: ‘We really need to have a lot more science’.
Photo: Margot Palmer
“If we can do it safely, every single person I have spoken to would be in favour,” Kennedy says. “We just want it done without any risk to our water.”
This all or nothing condition is, strictly, incapable of being met. Science is not absolute regarding nature, and communities typically reach consensus by working together and re-evaluating their starting positions.
Mayor Conrad Bolton, tall and broad, 30 years a cropduster pilot, six years in the navy, resident of Wee Waa since 1970, worries that opposing the Pilliga gas at all costs – which the farmers want – could backfire on the council if the project goes ahead anyway.
Time to engage with the NSW government over the rules of the road for the gas project could be lost, Bolton says. He wants farmers to work with the council to ensure the right studies are done, the right lessons are drawn and “the right thing is done”.
The community won an assurance from Santos that it would not enter farmers’ land without consent by working together, he says, and Queensland farmers’ body, AgForce, had more influence on the state government after they dropped their demands for a moratorium. They were able to extend the traditional “make-good” provision in oil and gas permits from above the ground to below the ground in Queensland’s Surat Basin, and NSW needs a similar measure, he says.
“We are working the problem not ignoring it,” Bolton says. “We are trying to think of what’s next and what’s next after that, and that’s why we need the engagement of the whole community.”
As well, if the two sides are “head-butting” each other, instead of following agreed processes, project approvals can get drawn out and costly, “unnecessarily damaging environmental, business and economic value”, Melbourne University economics professor and energy expert Ross Garnaut says.
“We can expect trench warfare over development projects, delays, increases in the supply price of investment and damage to all relevant interests until this phase of Australian management of the interface between the environment and the resource sector is brought to an end,” Garnaut said in a lecture in late May.
He blames business as much as environmentalists and farmers for the impasse.
TRENCH WARFARE
Trench warfare is what they’ve got in Narrabri shire now. Richard Orr, an ophthalmologist, was forced to stand down as president of the Chamber of Commerce after advocating an open-minded position on the gas project, other business folk say.
Orr would not comment for this article.
Ron Campbell, proprietor of Namoi Waste Corp, which clears drilling fluids and other waste for Santos, says his drivers have been followed home by protesters after dumping waste at Chinchilla, Queensland, and had their pictures taken from overtaking vehicles or while holding a birthday party for an eight-year-old at home.
After Campbell featured in an article in The AustralianFinancial Review last month, web designer Kate Schwager and others reposted on social media news of a brush his company had with the EPA over licensing. But they didn’t highlight the EPA’s view that there was no threat to the environment.
In one episode, NSW government point man for coal seam gas Jock Laurie was prevented from speaking at an “information night” in Wee Waa organised by Schwager and other activists, despite being invited by Bolton. Schwager says she had invited Bolton to speak at the event, but he refused and proposed Laurie when it was too late for him to be included in the agenda.
She says Laurie wants farmers and gas producers to “coexist” and “we have not even got down that road in Wee Waa”.
There’s even tension over Santos’s sponsorship of Narrabri’s Blue Boars rugby club. One player crosses his arms over the name on his rugby shirt when team photos are taken.
Farmers can give offence to townsfolk without knowing. “If they are making money out of it, they are happy,” says Kennedy of those working with Santos. “We are generational.”
BUSINESSPEOPLE WANT A FUTURE, TOO
Businesspeople want the farmers to know that they want a future for their sons too, says Chamber of Commerce boss Russell Stewart. The harsh fact is that agriculture employs fewer people as machinery improves. Frank Hadley, 87, came to the Namoi Valley from California in the early 1960s with another Californian, Paul Kahl, to establish the cotton industry.
Hadley, who still lives on the banks of the Namoi amid the irrigation channels and black soil fields he now leases to other farmers, says only one farm labourer is needed year-round to grow 1000 acres (405 hectares), whereas five were needed – plus casuals – when he started.
In a sparse, white timber home that doubles as an office, Hadley laments the intransigence of some farmers and suggests they forget their history. He has spoken to only one anti-gas farmer “who has even gone on the Santos tour to find out what’s going on”, he says. “He said, ‘You cannot believe them’. Well, if you take that attitude, you’ll never agree on anything.”
He points out that local graziers opposed irrigators when the first arrived, believing they could not coexist. “Basically, the same people who are anti-coal seam gas were saying irrigation was going to totally destroy this district. Now everybody gets on fine.”
(The cotton industry was on the nose with green groups little more than a decade ago over the amount of water and pesticides it used; now it uses water more efficiently, and GM cotton doesn’t require pesticides.)
Hadley says graziers have drilled a thousand bores down into the Great Artesian Basin over 100 years, using inferior technology to that used by Santos, to water stock.
“They have gone right through the sub-artesian basin, through the rock, and down into the artesian basin. And they have had no problems,” he says. “And there are better conditions today. The state and the EPA are watching everything very closely. So why would there be contamination now?”
SANTOS CONFIDENT IN SAFETY MEASURES
Santos insists it’s doing everything possible to reduce the risks of contamination and harmful spills to negligible levels. They are sticking to the Pilliga forest and to the land of farmers that want them. They have no plans to go anywhere near the rich black cotton-growing soil of the Liverpool Plains. Asked if he can guarantee the drilling won’t affect Kennedy’s farm 125 kilometres away, Baulderstone says he can “absolutely” guarantee it. But that won’t placate farmers close to the project area, such as Pickard right next door, or Ciesiolka six kilometres way – or even Kennedy and Carolan some distance away. They need more reassurance.
Santos reckons they should find it in the wells themselves. These are spaced about 500 metres apart during exploration, and encased in two to three layers of steel and 50 tonnes of cement engineered to eliminate air bubbles that could create a weakness and fail. They are constantly monitored and able to be stopped if something goes awry.
“We are reasonably confident – in fact, very confident of the integrity of our wells,” Mitchley says. “We are confident we are not connected to any aquifer system.”
The drilling fluids – guar gum and potassium sulfate – are similar to those used to drill farm bores. Santos’s 850 wells would be dwarfed by 18,000 drilled in the Namoi catchment, although most only penetrate the sub-artesian basin. The brine drawn from the wells is piped to holding ponds to be treated and, as the pressure drops, the coal naturally fractures, releasing natural gas – methane – and more water. The two are separated at the surface and the gas is flared, or compressed and piped to where it can be used.
One of these holding ponds, at Bibblewindi, was the site of another spill in 2011, under former owner Eastern Star Gas. About 8000 litres of concentrated brine burst from a reverse osmosis plant pipe next to the pond and killed vegetation over 3.4 hectares. Santos took over the project a few months later, reported the spill in 2012 and copped the $52,000 fine. The plant has been decommissioned, Bibblewindi is being dismantled and a new water-treatment complex is being built at Leewood, about 12 kilometres to the north.
“It didn’t meet our standards,” Mitchley says. He says the vegetation will grow back within a few years and rejects suggestions from Pickard and the Wilderness Society that a breach of the pond wall killed the trees, or that black water at the site contained oil. He says the water contained natural eucalytpus oil.
“It should not have happened and it’s horrible,” Mitchley says. “But it was portrayed in the national media as a catastrophe, and frankly it’s about as bad as it can get in coal seam gas.”
EXTRACTING A TERRIBLE TOLL
Mitchley and Baulderstone beam like expectant parents at Leewood, the scene of their swimming challenge. Two vast storage ponds – complete with two layers of three-millimetre polythene, double reinforced, pressure-tested seams, sumps and pumps – are being constructed and filled. If the project goes to production, a new reverse osmosis plant will be built to remove the salt, and the water that remains will be 80 per cent potable, suitable for environmental flows, irrigating crops or watering stock, Mitchley says. The salt will be dumped or refined to industrial or table grade and sold – whichever is most economical.
Pickard is a special thorn in Santos’s side. He reels off information about the dangers and shortcomings of Santos’s operations so fast that context is elusive. Santos’s own monitoring found his household bore unfit for human consumption. Pickard blames the drilling and is suing, via the Mullaley Gas and Pipeline Accord, for Santos’s records. Mitchley says a collapsed bore and wandering livestock on Pickard’s property are much more proximate and plausible culprits, and accuses the NSW Environmental Defender’s Office of fishing for information unrelated to Pickard’s well.
Sue Higginson, a NSW EDO lawyer, rejects that but admits they don’t yet have the evidence they need to sue Santos for damages for contaminating the well. She says expert witnesses – a hydrologist and a geologist – have advised her that the contaminants in Pickard’s well are consistent with high concentrations of methane: “They say there is a reasonable basis to suspect that what’s happening next door is the cause. I am over the speculation. I am looking for the evidentiary cause.”
Narrabri is over uncertainty and division. The battle for the Pilliga gas is taking a toll on the town and surrounding communities.
Some Santos workers in Wee Waa aren’t game to own up to their employer, Frank Hadley says. He calls that “sad”. Ron Campey says he tries to avoid working on the Pilliga campaign after lunch because “I get so wound up about it I can’t sleep”. Anne Kennedy complains of missing her 11 grandkids’ special events because she is on the road campaigning or up at nights researching. “All I want is to get this issue resolved with a full public meeting,” she says. But it’s doubtful that would do the trick.
More than 40 speakers, individuals and representatives of environment and community groups, presented submissions to a hearing of the Planning Assess...
More than 40 speakers presented submissions on proposed expansion of the Pilliga CSG explorationin Narrabri today.
More than 40 speakers, individuals and representatives of environment and community groups, presented submissions to a hearing of the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) at Narrabri Bowling Club today.
The meeting was convened to hear submissions on an application by Santos to expand existing gas exploration activities in Pilliga Forest at the company’s Bibblewindi and Dewhurst facilities.
The Department of Planning and Environment had referred the applications to the PAC and provided its environment assessment report for the applications.
The hearings were the last opportunity for public input before the Department makes a final determination on the applications.
ABOUT 100 community members, including three riders on horseback, seized the day to have their say at a public meeting about expansions at the Bibblewindi and Dewhurst gas exploration projects this month.
ABOUT 100 community members, including three riders on horseback, seized the day to have their say at a public meeting about expansions at the Bibblewindi and Dewhurst gas exploration projects this month.
A colourful crowd attends a public meeting about mine expansions at Narrabri.Photo: Ian Dunnet, The Courier
A meeting was held in Narrabri by the independent Planning Assessment Commission last Thursday to hear public views ahead of a decision on gas exploration expansion at the two sites.
The colourful public meeting included riders on horseback, members of the Knitting Nannas Against Gas, who knitted in the front row throughout the meeting, and more than 40 speakers.
The commission called the meeting “due to the level of public interest” in the Santos proposals.
The NSW Department of Planning and Environment has already stated the proposals to drill two new exploration wells at the site of the existing 12-well exploration site at Bibblewindi and re-drill three existing wells and two new wells at Dewhurst, would not “significantly impact” the water supply or environment.
The department has referred the applications to the commission for a final decision.
“The expansion of existing exploration also provides opportunity to alleviate gas supply shortages which could lead to significant energy price increases for consumers and businesses in NSW,” a media release by the department stated.
“Given this and the imposition of strict conditions, the department’s assessment concluded that the projects should proceed.”
The commission noted the Narrabri meeting was the “final opportunity” for comment on the department’s assessments and recommended conditions of approval, before a decision was made.
Speakers argued scientific and economic concerns had not been addressed, modelling was not adequate and health studies had not been carried out.
Heather Ranclaud, a Willow Tree farmer and a member of the Health Impact Assessment Steering Committee for the Gunnedah Basin, said she had tabled a report by a doctor that made recommendations to the commission about the risks of coal seam gas and the “adverse impacts” from living in a gas field.
“It’s very apparent that the Planning Assessment Commission should call for coal seam gas drilling in NSW to stop now,” she said.
“And they should instigate a robust health impact assessment before any further drilling takes place.
“People value a clean environment and good health. Coal seam gas puts this at risk.”
Ecologist David Milledge said the indirect impacts of the projects had not been assessed.
“Santos consultants are ignoring our data and there is a lack of detail on the threatened species,” he said.
A spokesperson for Santos said after the meeting they were only at the beginning of developing the project and were “absolutely confident” they would have local support to see it progress.
“We have strong support locally and in the areas in which we operate – and this includes from the Narrabri community, local businesses, local representatives and the landholders who choose to host our activities,” the spokesperson said.
“We understand there are people who may have concerns and this is what the public hearings are all about.
“Everyone is entitled to have their say about our applications currently before the PAC. But it’s important to remember that the Department of Planning has completed its own comprehensive assessment and recommends the applications be approved subject to conditions.
“The proposed works are minor and form part of our existing exploration program in the Pilliga. If approved, they will take place in an area where exploration and appraisal activities are already occurring inside the project area.”
Bibblewindi and Dewhurst are located between 25 and 44 kilometres from Narrabri.
Nationals Gut Water Trigger, Hogan Abandons Promise to Cross the Floor on CSG
Media Release 19th May 2014
Nationals Gut Water Trigger, Hogan Abandons Promise to Cross the Floor on CSG
The Federal National Party has walked away from its commitments to protect the national water trigger on Coal Seam Gas (CSG) mining, and voted last week to allow it to be handed back to the states.
The Federal National member for Page, Kevin Hogan, had promised to cross the floor on the CSG issue if necessary, but instead last week turned his back on iron-clad commitments made to his electorate.
"Last week in Parliament, the National Party voted to allow the Federal water trigger to be handed back to the states, rendering it completely meaningless" said Phil Laird, National Co-ordinator for Lock the Gate Alliance.
"This trigger was introduced because of the severe risks to water supplies posed by CSG and the abject failures of the states to properly assess or protect important, nationally significant water sources.
“Self interested state governments can’t be trusted to properly regulate nationally important water resources that cross state boundaries such as the Murray Darling Basin or the Great Artesian Basin.
"Voting this trigger down is a huge betrayal of farming communities and our environment. LNP figures who vowed publicly that the water trigger would not be touched if they were elected, should now hang their heads in shame" he said.
"Despite iron-clad guarantees to his electorate, last week Kevin Hogan voted to allow the Federal water trigger to be handed back to the states" said Michael McNamara, spokesperson with Gasfield Free Northern Rivers.
"Before the last election, Hogan made a specific commitment not to support Federal environment powers being handed back to the states and threatened to 'cross the floor' on CSG.
"However, last week in Federal Parliament that commitment lay in tatters, and Kevin Hogan voted for the Bill which has gutted the water trigger on CSG mining. He had his one big chance to 'cross the floor', and he blew it.
"Kevin Hogan staked his candidacy for the seat of Page on the CSG issue, and the people of the electorate deserve to know they have been abandoned. If this new Bill passes the Senate, Federal decisions on CSG water impacts will effectively be history" he said.
See attachment for pre-election statements and details of the Bill passed.
For comment: Phil Laird 0428 712622 or Michael McNamara 0418 195258
Attachment 1:
Commitments on the Water Trigger before the 2013 Federal Election.
In a candidates survey before the election last year, Kevin Hogan was asked:
"If elected to office, will you pledge to promote the following policies within your party and in public, and to vote to implement them via new or amended Federal laws:
1. Retention of current Federal environment powers, ruling out devolving them to the states and opposing any fast-tracking of coal or gas developments?"
His answer: 'Yes'. Full response from Kevin Hogan available on request.
During a tour with Kevin Hogan of the Page electorate in the lead-up to the Federal election last year, Joe Hockey stated that "Our policy is to continue the CSG policies that are in place, it's no different......Would we water down the water trigger amendment, I don't think so".
Northern Star, August 30 2013
Video footage of Kevin Hogan assuring 700 Lismore residents earlier this year that he had gained a guarantee from the National Party not to reverse the water trigger is available on request.
The Bill Passed Last Week
The Bill which passed the lower house of Federal Parliament last week is titled the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bilateral Agreement Implementation) Bill 2014.
As a result of Schedule 3, Part 1 of the Bill, state governments will take back sole decision-making power relating to water impacts for CSG and coal where a 'bilateral agreement' is in place. Draft bilateral agreements have already been developed for NSW and Queensland. The water trigger will still exist on paper, but it will be rendered completely meaningless.
TAMWORTH Regional Council has been drawn into the incendiary coal seam gas debate after helping scupper a move to ban the controversial activity on all farmland.
TAMWORTH Regional Council has been drawn into the incendiary coal seam gas debate after helping scupper a move to ban the controversial activity on all farmland.
An ambitious motion calling for the prohibition of coal seam gas extraction on agricultural land was put before the National Assembly of Local Government this week.
Despite many of the 300 councils represented wary of taking such a definitive stance on the complex issue, the motion fell just seven votes short of adoption, according to Lock the Gate.
Tamworth mayor Col Murray said the lack of identified coal seam gas potential in the government area meant it was the first time the council had taken any sort of position on the industry.
“I wouldn’t exactly say it’s declaring our hand on coal seam gas,” he said. “I think the motion could quite easily have got supported if it was worded a bit more carefully.
“People are entitled to an opinion and it was interesting to see the vote. When it came to the division, I think there were only about 150 votes cast. I would suggest there were a lot sitting on the fence.”
Cr Murray said such was the emotion surrounding the issue of coal seam gas, many councils were reluctant to wade into the debate for fear of a backlash.
“A lot of people who are very passionate about some controversial issues also tend to be bullies,” he said.
“I hear from a lot of people who don’t like to state a public opinion because of exactly that.”
If passed, the motion would have added clout to calls for the federal government to impose tighter regulations around drilling for coal seam gas on agricultural land.
Lock the Gate national co-ordinator and Maules Creek landholder Phil Laird said he was buoyed by the support the motion had garnered at the assembly in Canberra.
“We want to thank Griffith (City) Council for taking the initiative to put this motion to the assembly and are heartened that it received such wide support,” he said.
“This battle is local, and it is national, and it is only just getting started.”
THREE major industry and mining groups have called on the Abbott Government to abandon the “water trigger” in national environmental law.
Coal train pollution testing only being carried out in wealthy Brisbane suburbs and not Ipswich as Premier promises covers for coal trains. Photo: Sarah Harvey / The Queensland TimesSarah Harvey
THREE major industry and mining groups have called on the Abbott Government to abandon the "water trigger" in national environmental law.
The "water trigger' was introduced under the previous government to ensure the effects of large coal and coal seam gas projects on water resources were properly assessed.
But in a submission to a House of Representatives inquiry examining the government's plans to create "one stop shop" approvals processes, the industry urged the government to get rid of it.
The submission from the Business Council, Minerals Council and Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association endorsed Coalition statements at the time that the trigger was driven by politics.
While the big business groups called for the removal of the trigger, if it was not removed, industry endorsed the government's plans to hand it over to state governments to assess and enforce.
"While the water trigger remains in place, there is no policy rationale for prohibiting the Commonwealth from accrediting state government approvals processes for major coal mines and coal seam gas operations, where those state processes satisfy the standards for assessment and approval under the EPBC Act," the submission reads.
But the call follows legislation passing the House this week that further strengthens the water trigger, backed by Environment Minister Greg Hunt, to make sure state governments take on the advice of scientific experts to assess the effects of CSG and large coal mines on water.
However, in hearings of the inquiry on Thursday, the Law Council of Australia said while it supported less duplication of regulations, environmental standards should be maintained.
"Care is required to ensure that the regulatory scheme facilitates Australia's compliance with national and international commitments to ecologically sustainable development at the lowest economic cost both in the short and long term," the Law Council argued.
The nation's peak legal body also urged the Abbott Government to publicly recognise the "non-regression principle", to ensure new changes to environmental laws did not affect "matters of national and international environmental significance".
It also warned against the handover of Commonwealth environmental laws to state and territory governments, "after a series of High Court decisions overturned state government approvals granted to extractive industries", including stopping sand mining on Fraser Island.
One of Australia’s leading oil and gas producer, Santos, says it is confident that it retains support for its proposed coalbed methane (CBM) project in the New South Wales (NSW) Pilliga state forest.
The NSW state government’s Planning Assessment Commission held its first public meeting in Narrabri on Thursday to gauge local input on Santos’ plans to drill CBM exploration wells at the Bibblewindi and Dewhurst sites. The company is expected to lodge its environmental impact statement for the full project imminently.
Before the meeting took place, a small number of opponents to the plan made their voices heard, however, Santos remains confident that it retains local support.
Glenn Toogood, water manager for Santos, said: “We have signed 40 local access agreements with land holders...we're generating a lot of local economic activity and a lot of businesses appreciate that."
Toogood rejected claims made by opponents that more information on the water resource and how it will be affected by CBM operations is needed.
"We do have the data in relation to the project area,” Toogood claimed. “This area is a vast resource of ground water. It's been very well studied not only by ourselves but by the NSW Office of Water. There's been an independent study called the Namoi Water Catchment Study [...] and we've established good base line monitoring points right across the Great Artesian Basin.”
"We're utilising an extensive network across the alluvial system put in place by the Office of Water since the 1980's and it's important, moving forward, to continue to build this data, including the information in the Environmental Impact Statement, which we'll use as part of our modelling," Toogood continued.
He also said that the company's facilities are state of the art.
"If you looked at our new centralised water treatment facility at Leewood and the level of technology we've applied to that, certainly you'd walk away getting a really good appreciation that we are a first class operator," he added.
Protestors and opponents of CBM often carry concerns over water reserves near to drilling sites that are based on ideas misrepresented in the media. One industry professional told World Coalthat “If you don’t know the full information about these drilling projects, but you hear that there’s a small chance it could affect the supply of water you’re drinking, then you’re not going to want to support those projects – you’ll want to do everything you can to make sure there’s absolutely no risk to the water. But in truth, the risk posed to water by CBM projects is largely a myth fabricated by the media – as long as the proper precautions are taken, water supplies won’t be affected.”
Misleading job creation statistics
One aspect of Santos’ project that has been called into question is the supposed number of jobs the project will create.
The think thank, the Australia Institute, claimed Santos’ own economic analysis showed the project would create only 30 long-term jobs, but require 500 public service jobs to manage it.
Mark Ogge, from the Institute, said "a couple of years ago Santos commissioned […] economic analysis from Allen Consulting Group, to demonstrate an economic benefit from the project for NSW and the local region.They got some economic modelling done and it had some bizarre results.”
"The modelling suggests that there would only be 30 gas jobs from the whole project once it's operational [...] and yet it would generate 500 public service jobs paid for by the tax payer." (From the "Economic Impacts of Developing Coal Seam Gas Operations in Northern NSW 2012, p16).
Toogood rejected these claims, too, and said that Santos expects 1200 contractors will be employed overall during the development phase and that about 200 will employed full time once it is operational.
He further rejected a second claim, also made by the Australia Institute, that Santos hasn't met the government's requirements for economic modelling.
"We're confident about the modelling,” Toogood said. "We have a great resource for the state of NSW, we believe there are impending gas shortages coming forward, and we believe the Pilliga project plays an important part in providing that energy source and security for the state."
CBM vital to NSW
Santos said that developing CBM reserves in NSW was of critical importance to the region – as it would provide a much-needed source of natural gas for the state.
Natural gas from coal seams now accounts for around 90% of Queensland’s gas supply and 30% of the east coast gas demand.
NSW currently receives more than 95% of its natural gas from interstate.
The long-term gas contracts which have supplied gas to NSW in the past will expire over the next two to three years. This coincides with the commencement of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from Queensland which will see annual gas demand triple and the other states look to use their gas for their own economic benefit.
Unless NSW can develop an alternate source of natural gas, Santos said it believes the NSW State is likely to face much higher prices than if there was plentiful and certain supply for all domestic, commercial and industrial gas users.
Santos’ Narrabri Gas Project could supply NSW homes, small businesses, major industries and electricity generators with almost half the State's natural gas needs and bring substantial economic benefits to Narrabri and the region.
Santos water manager Glen Toogood says the company is a first class operator and it's gas operation in the Pilliga is state of the art.
Santos is confident it has support for its coal seam gas project in the New South Wales Pilliga State Forest, despite 40 opponents addressing a Planning and Assessment Committee meeting at Narribri in the state's central west yesterday.
The committee is looking at expansion plans for the Bibblewindi and Dewhurst Gas Exploration pilot projects.
Left wing think tank, the Australia Institute, claimed Santos' own economic analysis showed the project would create only 30 long term jobs, but require 500 public service jobs to manage it.
Mark Ogge, from the Institute, says "a couple of years ago Santos commissioned....economic analysis from Allen Consulting Group, to demonstrate an economic benefit from the project for NSW and the local region.
"They got some economic modelling done and it had some bizarre results.
"The modelling suggests that there would only be 30 gas jobs from the whole project once it's operational...and yet it would generate 500 public service jobs paid for by the tax payer." (From the "Economic Impacts of Developing Coal Seam Gas Operations in Northern NSW 2012, p16).
Glen Toogood, the water manager for Santos says, the company currently has 150-200 contractors in the region, it expects about 1200 will be employed overall during the development phase and that about 200 will employed full time once it is operational.
He rejects the claim, also made by the Australia Institute, that Santos hasn't met the government's requirements for economic modelling.
"We're confident about the modelling.
"We have a great resource for the state of NSW, we believe there are impending gas shortages coming forward, and we believe the Pilliga project plays an important part in providing that energy source and security for the state."
He is also confident the project has local support.
"We have signed 40 local access agreements with land holders...we're generating a lot of local economic activity and a lot of businesses appreciate that."
He also rejects claims made by opponents at the hearing that there's not enough information on the water resource and how it will be affected by coal seam gas operations.
"We do have the data in relation to the project area.
"This area is a vast resource of ground water. It's been very well studied not only by ourselves but by the NSW Office of Water.
"There's been an independent study called the Namoi Water Catchment Study...and we've established good base line monitoring points right across the Great Artesian Basin.
"We're utilizing an extensive network across the alluvial system put in place by the Office of Water since the 1980's and it's important, moving forward, to continue to build this data, including the information in the Environmental Impact Statement, which we'll use as part of our modelling."
He says Santos' facilities are state of the art.
"If you looked at our new centralised water treatment facility at Leewood and the level of technology we've applied to that, certainly you'd walk away getting a really good appreciation that we are a first class operator."
LANDHOLDERS have expressed fears energy giant Santos is hell-bent on laying a massive pipeline through some of the Liverpool Plains’ most productive farmland to transport coal seam gas to the Sydney market.
LANDHOLDERS have expressed fears energy giant Santos is hell-bent on laying a massive pipeline through some of the Liverpool Plains’ most productive farmland to transport coal seam gas to the Sydney market.
The company is on track to present an environmental impact statement for its planned $2 billion Narrabri Gas Project to the NSW government before June 30, but the document will not contain details about the pipeline.
The Liverpool Plains
The “preferred route” for the crucial piece of infrastructure is not expected to be revealed until Santos lodges a separate submission – titled the “Pipeline Preliminary Environment Assessment” – at a future, undisclosed date.
A spokesperson for the company told The Leader this week that “a final route has not yet been determined”, but it will run south from its Pilliga operation and link in to the existing Moomba to Sydney pipeline.
The uncertainty surrounding such an integral piece of Santos’ plans to cure the state’s pending gas crisis by providing up to 200 terajoules a day – half NSW’s natural gas needs – from the project has many landholders worried.
Members of the Mullaley Gas and Pipeline Accord (MGPA) – a community group formed back when Eastern Star Gas was proposing a 272km pipeline from Narrabri to Wellington – continue to follow any development on the pipeline closely.
David Quince, a Tambar Springs farmer and Gunnedah councillor, has no doubt the company’s preference is for the pipeline to take the most direct route through black soil country.
He said his greatest fear was that it would start near Jacks Creek Forest in the Pilliga and pass through the so-called “biogenic fairway” east of Gunnedah – an area with both huge coal seam gas potential and productive soils – and down to Georges Island on the Liverpool Plains.
Georges Island was the site of a high-profile blockade in 2011 when farmers foiled Santos’ plans to push ahead with a pilot program of coal seam gas production.
Mr Quince said that adding credence to his theory is that Santos stated at an investor seminar in 2013 that the pipeline would be 180km long.
“If you drive from Jacks Creek Forest down to Georges Island it is about 197km, but in a straight line it is close enough to 180km,” he said.
“What it would enable is Santos to open up that biogenic fairway – which has some of the deepest, most valuable and productive black soils in the country – to exploration.”
A Santos spokesperson said: “Once a preferred route has been determined, we will consult with the local
community and all relevant stakeholders who may have an interest or who may be impacted.”
The Coal seam gas in the Tara region: summary risk assessment of health complaints and environmental monitoring data report (PDF 927kB) was compiled following concerns raised by local residents about the impact of increased coal seam gas (CSG) activity on their health.
A small number of residents had complained of various symptoms including headaches, eye irritations, nose bleeds and skin rashes.
The report - based on clinical and environmental monitoring data available - found no clear link between emissions from CSG activities and health complaints from residents.
The report recommends a more strategic ambient air monitoring program to identify current and future impacts of CSG activities on air quality.
It also states the impact of noise and vibration requires further investigation.
The report acknowledges the social impact of CSG activities on the community.
Appendices
Some information in the following appendices has been removed for privacy reasons.
Appendix 1: The Darling Downs Public Health Unit investigation into the health complaints relating to Coal Seam Gas activity from residents residing within the Wieambilla Estates, Tara, Queensland, July to November 2012 (PDF 170KB)
Appendix 2: Health effects of coal seam gas – Tara (Dr Keith Adam) (PDF 81kB)
Appendix 4: Wieambilla Estates Odour Investigation Results July–December 2012 (Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts) (PDF 196kB)
COMMUNITY concern over coal seam gas took centre stage in NSW parliament yesterday, when members from the North West Alliance presented a petition calling for change to the approvals process for coal and coal seam gas extraction.
“Mining in the north-west region simultaneously threatens our most productive farmland and most significant bush land,” the petition, with 11,000 signatures, said.
“If allowed to continue as planned it will permanently degrade both our productive and ecological base and forever change the nature of our rural communities.”
The petition stated there is not enough “unbiased scientific data available” for coal and CSG to proceed safely, with potential for damage to farmland and water resources.
Narrabri resident and North West Alliance member, Rohan Boehm, is concerned about the assessment process for the Santos Narrabri gas project in the Pilliga State Forest.
He said National Party politicians, who do not oppose the project outright, are not representative of the community.
“It is a blindspot in the National Party, which does not understand the depth of feeling in the local community,” he said.
“They keep trotting out platitudes about the science behind coal seam gas that we simply donate agree with.”
Speaking during the discussion on the petition in the lower house, Water Minister and Member for Barwon, Kevin Humphries said “water is the lifeblood of our State's diverse regional communities, industries and economies”.
“No government has done more than the Liberal-Nationals government to protect our water resources.
“In addition, the Land and Water Commissioner has been working closely with the Chief Scientist to develop a robust water monitoring framework and has been engaging local communities in the process.
Mr Humphries provided a detailed statement to The Land, which said:
"Both my staff and I have met with landholders, industry representatives and a range of community groups such as the North West Alliance on many occasions and I have heard a wide range of opinion on the Santos Narrabri Gas Project.
"The message I have most often heard is that people are not opposed to mining activity as long as it is done in a safe and sustainable way that will not damage the area’s water resources."
Read Mr Humphries’ full response to the petition here
The Gasfield Free initiative said it had surveyed thousands of residents over millions of hectares of land in North West NSW, over 90 per cent of whom responded against coal seam gas.
Mr Boehm said a commitment from the NSW government which forms a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Santos to make a determination on the Narrabri project by January 23, 2015, is a particular concern.
“The MoU that fast tracks the Narrabri gasfield put the chief scientist in the slot,” he said.
“The truth of the matter is NSW’s Chief Scientist (Mary O’Kane) said she can’t deliver that assessment and would be compromised by it.”
The MoU originally stated that Ms O’Kane would work with Santos to provide modelling for groundwater, a departure from her typical role of independent assessor.
Data on the potential impact of the Narrabri project on groundwater resources will now be assessed by seven independent experts, instead of the Chief Scientist.
Click here to view the petition
The North West Alliance describes itself as an umbrella organisation of 30 community groups concerned about coal and gas mining in north-west NSW.
Australia's not on the brink of a gas shortage -- but the industry is running out of new ways to spin. In part one of a Crikey investigation, we debunk the self-interested case of suppliers and governments.
Australia’s not on the brink of a gas shortage — but the industry is running out of new ways to spin. In part one of a Crikey investigation, we debunk the self-interested case of suppliers and governments.
New South Wales is about to run out of gas, so says the scare campaign. It’s bully-boy tactics by Australia’s powerful oil and gas industry, designed to pressure the state government into quickly approving contentious coal seam gas projects proposed by Santos at Narrabri and AGL at Gloucester.
Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane is on board, warning last year NSW would “run short of gas by 2016” and moving to knock heads together on the issue straight after the election. For months we have been hearing the same lines trotted out: how NSW is “running on empty”, suddenly needs “energy security”, and how developing its own “indigenous” gas supplies will ease prices.
Former John Howard industrial relations minister Peter Reith — whose recommendation to lift fracking bans was ignored by the Victorian government last year — used his column in Fairfax papers yesterday to accuse the O’Farrell government of abandoning the CSG debate, warning “there is a real prospect Sydney could suffer gas shortages”. Reith failed to disclose his consultancy with construction giant Bechtel, a major contractor to the CSG industry.
Former federal energy minister Martin Ferguson was appointed chair of new advisory group APPEA (“the voice of Australia’s oil and gas industry”) in October, barely six months after he stepped down from his cabinet post and only weeks after retiring from Parliament — flouting the 18-month cooling-off period required of ex-ministers under the lobbying code of conduct.Ferguson had a dig at his erstwhile NSW Labor colleagues for “parroting the lines of the Greens and showing itself to be completely irrelevant to the debate”, urging Premier Barry O’Farrell to break “the impasse preventing the development of the state’s abundant gas resources to put downward pressure on rising prices”.
The ABC’s fact checkers concluded Macfarlane’s alarming claims about a NSW gas shortage were “unverifiable”. They were way too generous. The claims are rubbish, designed to confuse the public. Here’s what they’re not telling you:
No one is going to run out of gas;
Developing CSG in NSW won’t lower rising gas prices;
It’s too late anyway for NSW CSG to ease the current uncertainty affecting gas markets; and
There are plenty of alternative sources of supply for NSW.
Australia has an incredible amount of gas; we’re about to overtake Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. Between Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, seven LNG projects worth more than $200 billion are on the go.
The chart above shows three seriously big gas resources that supply the southern and eastern states: the massive coal seam gas in Queensland’s Bowen and Surat basins (41620PJ), plus conventional gas in the Gippsland Basin (3890PJ) and the Cooper Basin (1835PJ). Not shown but certainly exercising the mind of investors is a vast potential resource of tight and shale gas in the Cooper Basin — which may turn out to be bigger than CSG in Queensland, and which oil majors like Chevron and BG Group are scrambling to invest in. By comparison, the coal seam gas discovered in NSW is significant, but no game-changer: Santos has 1426PJ in the Gunnedah Basin, which accounts for half the state’s known reserves.
Overall, there is no doubt Australia has enough gas in the ground to supply both the domestic and export markets. As a country we can afford to think strategically, pick and choose which gas fields we develop, and in what order.
As the Australian Energy Market Operator found last year, if there’s one place in Australia susceptible to shortage it’s Gladstone in Queensland. That’s where three massive LNG export projects operated by BG, Santos and Origin Energy are about to treble gas demand in eastern Australia — ultimately representing some 80% of total gas demand in the eastern market — once they begin to come online later this year. By exposing the domestic market to higher international LNG prices of around $14-15 a gigajoule (which are geared to the oil price), the LNG projects are going to double domestic wholesale gas prices, from around $3-4/GJ to $8-10/GJ and higher, inevitably pushing up retail prices (as NSW saw last week).
The three big projects in Gladstone were approved quickly in 2010 and 2011 — without any strategic consideration of the impact on the domestic gas market — in a rush to sign lucrative contracts with buyers in Asia. It’s a bold experiment; the world’s first attempt to convert coal seam gas into LNG for export. Nobody knows yet if the thousands of CSG wells required to feed the six big LNG liquefaction units (or “trains”) under construction — each one consuming roughly as much gas each year as say Queensland or Victoria, so adding six new states’ worth of demand to the network — can be drilled fast enough, and will flow enough gas for long enough, to fulfil those contractual commitments.
The federal Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics described this as the key “information asymmetry” in the eastern Australia gas market — “whether or not CSG production associated with LNG exports will fall short” — and says we won’t really know the answer until the plants get up and running, from late-2014 to 2016.
With almost $70 billion on the line to develop these projects, it’s nerve-wracking to say the least for CSG-LNG operators — particularly Santos, which last Friday rattled investors by again downgrading its gas resource estimates. Santos insists it has enough gas to supply its Gladstone LNG project, but AEMO predicts shortages of 83 terajoules a day from 2018 — and they’ve been the biggest buyer of gas in the wholesale market in the past few years. AGL describes Santos’ project as “materially short” of gas over the longer term.
Not that Santos is alone trying to shore up supply. Projects that were originally planned to rely on CSG from Queensland’s Bowen and Surat basins are now sucking up more and more conventional gas resources. The operators are moving to shore up gas supply from each other, from interstate, from everywhere. BG and Santos have both bought gas from Origin, which has the best CSG acreage in Queensland. Santos and Origin are buying in gas from the Cooper Basin. Origin has bought extra gas from as far away as Bass Strait.
Gas-fired power stations will be closed to make sure those LNG trains at Gladstone are kept full. Queensland’s Swanbank gas-fired power station has just announced it will shut for the next three years — with gas prices rising it was more lucrative to sell the gas to LNG operators than to burn it for electricity. Swanbank’s owner, Stanwell, will fire up the mothballed coal-fired Tarong power station instead. Others will follow suit. It’s bad news for Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Pipeline operators have already felt the pull from the new centre of gravity in Gladstone. The biggest operator, APA Trust, is upgrading its Victorian interconnect, so it can bring more gas north. Jemena is likely to do the same, last year announcing feasibility work on upgrading the Eastern Gas Pipeline that runs up the east coast from Esso’s Longford plant and already supplies more than half of the gas needs of NSW. These upgrades are comparatively cheap; generally a bit more compression is all that’s needed — no new pipe, no new corridor.
APA operates the Moomba-Sydney pipeline and also the connecting South West Queensland pipeline to Wallumbilla that has brought Queensland’s coal seam gas into NSW. APA is set to reverse the flow of that pipe, from east-west to west-east, so Cooper Basin gas can flow to Gladstone. Last weekAPA announced it would conduct feasibility on a pipeline to bring gas from the Northern Territory and even the Timor Sea, all the way east.
Critically for NSW, the flow of APA’s Moomba-Sydney pipeline could ultimately be reversed. Does that mean Sydney runs out of gas? No. Gas will flow up augmented pipelines from Bass Strait, which is not running out any time soon. Esso and BHP are spending $4.5 billion on developing the Kipper Tuna Turrum project to maintain production there and the partners do not reveal reserve numbers. In an outburst of honesty then BHP petroleum chiefMike Yeager told the APPEA conference in Adelaide in 2012 that Bass Strait could supply east coast markets “indefinitely”.
AEMO estimated a shortfall of between at least 150-250TJ/day in Gladstone between 2015 and 2018. By contrast, AEMO forecasts a much smaller shortfall of some 50-100TJ/day in NSW — but not until 2018 — and this only on peak days in winter. Even without new CSG projects in NSW, there are other ways to manage these peaks: up to 150TJ/day can be stored in the Moomba-Sydney pipeline — by increasing the pressure, known as “linepack” — and another 120TJ/day will be available on a short-term basis from the gas storage facility which AGL has under construction in Newcastle.
GDF Suez says it is reconsidering a huge project for a floating gas liquefaction factory off northern Aust.
GDF Suez says it is reconsidering a huge project for a floating gas liquefaction factory off northern Aust.
French energy giant GDF Suez says it is reconsidering a huge project for a floating gas liquefaction factory off northern Australia and might opt to build an undersea pipeline to Darwin.
The gas fields concerned continue to have 'material value', the company said on Thursday.
But using a floating liquefaction plant to process the gas does not satisfy business criteria, the group said, in an important announcement for the Australian energy sector.
The overall project, called Bonaparte, involves an ambitious scheme using advanced technology to generate liquefied natural gas from resources off northern Australia.
The development of floating liquefaction plants is at the forefront of efforts to turn Australia into a leading supplier of LNG in Asia.
Liquefied natural gas is being developed worldwide and notably in North America to process gas from shale fields so it can be transported in LNG tanker ships.
GDF Suez is a leading company in the sector and the biggest importer of LNG into Europe.
It said with its Australian partner Santos it was considering 'other potential development options' for three gas fields west of Darwin and 250 kilometres out to sea.
'These options will include a pipeline connection to Darwin,' GDF Suez said in a statement.
There is already a gas liquefaction plant in Darwin of which Santos is a minority shareholder.
The project is known as Bonaparte LNG and the three fields are Petrel, Tern and Frigate.
GDF Suez and Santos 'firmly believe that fields have material value,' the statement said. But 'their future development using floating LNG (liquefied natural gas) technology, although technically robust ... does not currently meet companies' commercial requirements.'
GDF Suez said 'consequently, the proposed Bonaparte floating LNG project will not be taken into front-end-engineering and design phase at this point in time.'
French oil and gas engineering group Technip was in competition with US firm KBR to work on the floating plant project.
In September, GDF Suez delayed for a year its final decisions for investment and operations for the Bonaparte project. It indicated then that it might take its decision on investment in 2015 and target opening operations in 2019.
The project for a floating LNG processing plant capable of liquefying 2.0 million tonnes of natural gas per year, was intended to enable GDF Suez to develop deliveries to markets in Asia.
The partners have never put a value on the cost of the enormous project in which GDF Suez would hold 60 per cent and Santos 40 per cent.
Several other projects for floating LNG plants are under construction or being built in Australia.
Among these is the pioneer project called Prelude, headed by British-Dutch group Shell, and a vast project called Ichthys in which French energy group Total has an interest.
The floating factories are a solution for fields which could not have been developed previously.
The development of the technology opens the way for Australia to become a big LNG producer. However, the technical problems and costs involved are huge.
- See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/business/business/world/2014/06/19/gdf-suez-freezes-australian-gas-project.html#sthash.3qLipmbg.dpuf
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