Great Artesian Basin Protection Group

Gas Drillers bring in the Heavy Hitters

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:04:24 +0000

Gas drillers have failed to win over the public but with help from big lobbyists with top-level Coalition connections, they’re putting pressure on the NSW government.
As public sentiment shifts against the sector, NSW’s biggest coal seam gas companies are busier than ever safeguarding their billion dollar babies with the help of high profile and well connected lobbyists.

Together the big CSG players — Metgasco, Santos and AGL — have seven separate lobby firms working for them, more than doubling their clout behind the scenes.
Until its takeover by Santos last year, Eastern Star Gas employed an additional two firms, with the ratio of lobbyists to energy companies peaking before the end of 2011 at more than 2:1. This comes despite Premier Barry O’Farrell’s declaration that those hiring lobbyists “are wasting their money”.

But the lobbyists aren’t out to convince the crowd, but to buy the ears of conservative politicians. Significant donations from lobbyists working on behalf of the industry are steadily landing in the coffers of the NSW Liberal and National Parties.

Read article:
http://newmatilda.com/2012/02/06/gasdrillers-heavy-hitters

Energy use sucking up a precious resource

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:11:56 +0000

“The largest single water user in the industrialised world is the energy industry. Prodigious amounts are needed to produce nearly every type of electricity and transport fuel across the energy value chain . . ”
The link between energy and water is rarely discussed, yet is of huge consequence. It is strange, strange, strange that when it comes to the most important subject on the planet, the basis of all life – water – governments, international agencies, economists, scientists and businesses have consistently underestimated the growth in global demand, and the growing stress on supply.

It’s the biggest story in the world, yet mostly what we talk about is money: debt, growth, superannuation, savings, stockmarkets, gross national product, housing prices, wages.

”Pumping, conveying, and treating water is extremely energy-intensive. Water is very heavy – 20 per cent more than oil – and massive volumes are required to sustain modern society . . . each day every person living in an industrialised nation personally consumes about [US]1000 gallons [3785 litres] embedded in the food we eat . . . ”

Solomon continues: ”While the 13-fold increase in energy use in the 20th century is often heralded as the signature factor in the unprecedented prosperity of a world population that has quadrupled to over 6 billion, it has been accompanied and also leveraged by a nine-fold increase in freshwater use . . .”

Coal Seam Gas Moratorium

admin — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:31:11 +0000

Please sign this petition requesting a Moratorium on CSG exploration and mining. I would like to add to the petition that the Report (when completed) be independently peer reviewed, as many of the experts on the Committee are not ‘independent’ at all, but receive their funding from the govt. or the mining industry.
There should be an immediate halt to the destruction of our aquifers and farming land, at least until they do some studies and get the science right.
The petition reads:

“To the honorable Tony Burke Minster for water:

We the undersigned request that the minister halt all Coal Seam gas exploration and mining until such time that the Interim committee to advise on coal seam gas and large coal mining has reported on it’s findings and the report is tabled in the federal parliament and debated in both houses of the federal parliament.

After which the report is publicly distributed via several media and public comment and submissions are fully considered.

Click link to sign petition:
COAL SEAM GAS MORATORIUM Petition | GoPetition

The Coal Seam Gas Rush

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:22:24 +0000

Coal seam gas has emerged as a major industry in Australia in little more than a decade.
The scale and speed of its growth has been nothing short of astonishing: billions of dollars have poured into regional areas; new jobs have been created; state and national coffers have swelled; export contracts have been signed and sealed; massive liquefied natural gas facilities have been approved for construction at regional ports.

Farmers fear they are losing control of their land. Miners and some politicians say coal seam gas offers a much greener energy choice. Environmentalists and other politicians have cast doubt on those claims.
The ABC’s data journalism project has pulled together information from dozens of sources to provide an insight into the promise and the dangers inherent in the coal seam gas rush.

Did you know:
• it is estimated there will be 40,000 coal seam gas wells in Australia
• conservative estimates suggest coal seam gas wells could draw 300 gigalitres of water from the ground each year?
• the industry could produce as much greenhouse gas as all the cars on the road in Australia?
• modelling suggests the industry could produce 31 million tonnes of waste salt over the next 30 years?

View website:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/specials/coal-seam-gas-by-the-numbers/

CSG company failed to report saline spill

admin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:40:59 +0000

The discharge of 10,000 litres of saline water at a coal seam gas project in north-western New South Wales was not reported to the State Government for six months.
Santos operates the Narrabri Coal Seam Gas Project, in the Pilliga Forest. It bought the operation off Eastern Star Gas and took over in November.

The Department of Trade and Investment says last Friday night Santos advised it that in June a pipeline failure occurred which resulted in the discharge of 10,000 litres of saline coal seam gas water. The incident was not reported to government authorities by Eastern Star Gas at the time even though it was obliged to report such incidents under the conditions of its petroleum exploration licence.

The Department says it is pursuing enforcement actions on the discharge and says there is the potential for prosecution.
Watch the ABC news program:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-13/csg-company-failed-to-report-saline-spill/3771914

Katter’s Qld leader joins CSG protest

admin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:46:44 +0000

The Queensland leader of Katter’s Australian Party, Aidan McLindon, has joined an anti-coal seam gas blockade south of Brisbane.
Local landowners and anti-CSG campaigners from Queensland and NSW set up the protest site on a farm at Kerry, near Beaudesert, early on Thursday, preventing Arrow Energy from doing exploratory CSG drilling.

Twelve people have been arrested at the site and charged with contravening a police direction. They will all face Beaudesert Magistrates Court next month.

Mr McLindon, a former LNP member and sitting Beaudesert MP, said he had joined the blockade because he shared the residents’ concerns about the mining practice.

“The coal seam gas threat has well and truly reached the heart of the Scenic Rim as the foreign-owned company, Arrow Energy, rolls out its exploration permits,” Mr McLindon said on Friday.
“I am proud to stand by the local community that I was elected to represent in their fight against this flawed industry.”
“(Premier) Anna Bligh and (Opposition Leader) Campbell Newman have both turned a blind eye to this industry which is devastating prime rural land in a region which provides tourism and agriculture.”

Earlier on Friday, NSW schoolteacher Daniel Robins scaled a seven-metre drill rig, and refused to come down until he had spoken to an Arrow Executive. Mr Robins said the protesters wanted baseline water tests to be conducted on local aquifers before drilling was allowed to begin.
“We need to know what is in there now, because after drilling, once it’s contaminated we have to know who is responsible,” he said.

Read full article:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8402537/further-arrests-at-qld-anti-csg-blockade

Fracking hell: the untold story

admin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:33:00 +0000

An original investigative report by Earth Focus and UK’s Ecologist Film Unit looks at the risks of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale. From toxic chemicals in drinking water to unregulated interstate dumping of potentially radioactive waste that experts fear can contaminate water supplies in major population centers including New York City, are the health consequences worth the economic gains?

Marcellus Shale contains enough natural gas to supply all US gas needs for 14 years. But as gas drilling takes place, using a process called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” toxic chemicals and methane gas seep into drinking water. Now experts fear that unacceptable levels of radioactive Radium 226 in gas development waste.

Fracking chemicals are linked to bone, liver and breast cancers, gastrointestinal, circulatory, respiratory, developmental as well as brain and nervous system disorders. Such chemicals are present in frack waste and may find their way into drinking water and air.

Watch the video of this report:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEB_Wwe-uBM&feature=related

‘Fountains’ of methane 1,000m across erupt from Arctic ice

admin — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 07:55:12 +0000

The Russian research vessel Academician Lavrentiev conducted a survey of 10,000 square miles of sea off the coast of eastern Siberia.
They made a terrifying discovery – huge plumes of methane bubbles rising to the surface from the seabed.
‘We found more than 100 fountains, some more than a kilometre across,’ said Dr Igor Semiletov, ‘These are methane fields on a scale not seen before. The emissions went directly into the atmosphere.’

Earlier research conducted by Semiletov’s team had concluded that the amount of methane currently coming out of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is comparable to the amount coming out of the entire world’s oceans.
Now Semiletov thinks that could be an underestimate.
The melting of the arctic shelf is melting ‘permafrost’ under the sea, which is releasing methane stored in the seabed as methane gas.

These releases can be larger and more abrupt than any land-based release. The East Siberian Arctic Shelf is a methane-rich area that encompasses more than 2 million square kilometers of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean.

Methane bubbles trapped in ice: Normally, bubbles from the seabed turn into carbon dioxide before reaching the surface, but the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is so shallow the methane travels directly into the atmosphere
“This is the first time that we’ve found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. Earlier we found torch or fountain-like structures like this,” Semiletov told the Independent. “This is the first time that we’ve found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It’s amazing.”
“Over a relatively small area, we found more than 100, but over a wider area, there should be thousands of them.”

The shelf is shallow, 50 meters or less in depth, which means it has been alternately submerged or above water, depending on sea levels throughout Earth’s history.

During Earth’s coldest periods, it is a frozen arctic coastal plain, and does not release methane.

As the planet warms and sea levels rise, it is inundated with seawater, which is 12-15 degrees warmer than the average air temperature.

In deep water, methane gas oxidizes into carbon dioxide before it reaches the surface. In the shallows of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, methane simply doesn’t have enough time to oxidize, which means more of it escapes into the atmosphere.

Exposure to severe urban air pollution influences cognitive outcomes, brain volume and systemic inflammation in clinically healthy children

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:10:22 +0000

Abstract:
Exposure to severe air pollution produces neuroinflammation and structural brain alterations in children. We tested whether patterns of brain growth, cognitive deficits and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) are associated with exposures to severe air pollution. Baseline and 1year follow-up measurements of global and regional brain MRI volumes, cognitive abilities (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised, WISC-R), and serum inflammatory mediators were collected in 20 Mexico City (MC) children (10 with white matter hyperintensities, WMH(+), and 10 without, WMH(-)) and 10 matched controls (CTL) from a low polluted city. There were significant differences in white matter volumes between CTL and MC children – both WMH(+) and WMH(-) – in right parietal and bilateral temporal areas. Both WMH(-) and WMH(+) MC children showed progressive deficits, compared to CTL children, on the WISC-R Vocabulary and Digit Span subtests. The cognitive deficits in highly exposed children match the localization of the volumetric differences detected over the 1year follow-up, since the deficits observed are consistent with impairment of parietal and temporal lobe functions. Regardless of the presence of prefrontal WMH, Mexico City children performed more poorly across a variety of cognitive tests, compared to CTL children, thus WMH(+) is likely only partially identifying underlying white matter pathology. Together these findings reveal that exposure to air pollution may perturb the trajectory of cerebral development and result in cognitive deficits during childhood.
(This research paper is relevant to the children living near coal mines in the Hunter Valley – where the PM2.5′s affect their brain development.)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/pubmed/22032805

Media Release from Lock the Gate Walgett

admin — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 12:57:02 +0000

MEDIA RELEASE: Last Thursday 15 December 2011, approximately fifty people attended the ‘What Is In Our Water’ Forum at the Walgett RSL Memorial Hall. This meeting was organised by Lock The Gate Walgett, a group of concerned community members who wish to raise awareness about the risks and dangers associated with coal seam gas mining in NSW.

Attendees of this meeting included local business owners, medical practitioners, police officials, members from the Walgett Shire Council, NSW Farmers Association, the Walgett Catchment Management Authority and the Dharriwaa Elders Group.

The meeting heard personal statements from Federal ministers including Robert Oakeshott MP, Mark Coulton MP and local State MP Kevin Humphries. After a series of speeches and discussions from local farmers, residents of the Pilliga and guests from the University of NSW, the members of Lock The Gate Walgett decided to pass the following motion:

We demand the NSW government place a moratorium on all current and future exploration and production licences for coal seam gas activities across NSW until the following demands are met:
• A full and comprehensive water study of the Pilliga region, including the Namoi River and the relevant sections of the Great Artesian Basin.
• Clear information is disclosed to the public concerning the chemicals used and produced (including BTEX, and the discharge created) during coal seam gas activities and processes.
• All mining companies be held accountable for their activities throughout the Pilliga, including any damage to the Namoi River and the Great Artesian Basin and ensure that these areas are not subjected to further environmental damage.
• The health and environmental quality of the Pilliga water ways are restored to a pre-coal seam gas mining state.

Lock The Gate Alliance Vice President Jacinta Green stated that: “Groups like Lock The Gate Walgett are part of a growing alliance of over 100 community groups now raising awareness about coal seam gas mining around Australia.”
Spokesperson for Lock the Gate Walgett Daniel Robins told last night’s meeting that “Protecting Australia’s water systems such as the Murray Darling and the Great Artesian Basin is one of the most important issues in Australia today. Unfortunately, both State and Federal Governments are resisting the calls of our communities to take action now to ensure the protection of Australia’s water into the future.”

For more information call: Daniel Robins – Lock The Gate Walgett – Phone: 0406049871