Article by Bob Katter – What do you call an industry that doesn’t create many job opportunities, doesn’t provide significant revenue for the economy and destroys structural homeland industries through systemic and endemic collateral damage? It’s called the coal seam gas industry. http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/more_risks_than_benefits_in_csg_rzi5tx8wymhIPv95zezhPO
“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.”
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.
Walgett schoolteacher, 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.
SOUTHERN Highlands representatives at the NSW Upper House Inquiry into coal seam gas (CSG) mining in Mittagong on Friday were overshadowed by a powerful statement from Rivers SOS.
Ms Graham spoke about the “white elephant” in the room being the “undue influence” that mining companies had over Australia’s political process.
She received rousing applause from the gallery.
“Country Labor has taken a stand and called on the O’Farrell Government to immediately suspend all Coal Seam Gas exploration licenses before irreparable damage is caused to ground water and aquifers in the Northern Rivers,” Mr Ellem said.
“We have said that until a regulatory framework is in place based on independent scientific research and conclusive evidence, we should not be allowing Coal Seam Gas mining to proceed freely.
The US Environmental Protection Agency for the first time has implicated fracking – a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells – for causing groundwater pollution.
“Internal advice to the Queensland government had warned five years ago that coal-seam gas development was dictated by misplaced “technological optimism” that environmental problems could be solved, when there was no way to assess the industry’s “cumulative impact” on farming and water.”
This is just more instances of professional advice that Anna Bligh ignored. She – and Tony Burke – also ignored Dr Chloe Munro, the Commissioner of the National Water Commission, who warned them of the huge impacts to the GAB.
FORMER coal-seam gas mechanical technician Roy Michie, who spent eight years working fracking wells across Australia, claims the industry is dominated by “cowboys” who are subject to substandard regulation.
Yet it is fair to say the risks here are considerable. As the committee report emphasises, we cannot afford to be reckless with the Great Artesian Basin because it is one of the nation’s most precious natural resources.
GROWING community and political opposition to coal-seam gas production is beginning to make analysts doubt whether yet-to-be approved projects will get up.
Methane danger in CSG, scientist says