Coal Seam Gas: Queensland supplies a timely lesson for the rest of Australia

ABC News, 26 May 2016:

The risk of spreading toxic groundwater from one of Queensland's worst environmental contaminations has prompted a ban on coal seam gas drilling in an area where companies are already extracting gas.

The State Government quietly created a no-go zone for gas extraction 10 kilometres around the former Linc Energy site in the Southern Inland, at Hopeland, burying the decision in an environmental approval issued to Arrow Energy in December.

Despite the ban, Arrow and QGC still have permission to extract gas within the zone.

On a separate, neighbouring mining lease — approved in August — Arrow gained approval to ramp up six existing "pilot" wells for commercial production.

Farmers said they were alarmed by the revelation and want state officials to come clean about the risks of groundwater contamination spreading under prime grazing and cropping land.

The ban is the first public admission that a burgeoning CSG industry could aggravate the Linc contamination, where toxic gases were released into groundwater by a now-illegal process called underground coal gasification.

Cotton grower Brian Bender's Hopeland property is split by the two Arrow tenements — where CSG extraction is banned on one side but not the other.

"I think it's a bit of a joke, really — there are no lines underground," Mr Bender said….

The ABC understands tests on groundwater contamination were being examined by a trio of experts who would be called as state witnesses in a criminal prosecution of five former Linc executives next month.

The failed company was convicted and fined a record $4.5 million last May for causing serious environmental harm through its underground coal gasification (UCG) plant.

The District Court heard in that trial that it could take up to 20 years for groundwater to recover from Linc's attempts at the now-illegal UCG process, which allowed toxic gases to escape through fractured rock.

At the time, the state's then-environment minister described the contamination as "the biggest pollution event probably in Queensland's history".

A week before Christmas, Arrow gained approval for 70 wells on a gas tenement to the north-east of the former Linc site.

It is part of its $10 billion Surat Gas Project, which Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk promoted in a February media release as Queensland's "biggest resources project since 2011".

Ms Palaszczuk's release made no mention of the gas extraction no-go zone.

But the state's Department of Environment and Science approval said Arrow "must not locate any [CSG] production wells within 10 kilometres [of the Linc site]".

"The extraction of groundwater as part of the petroleum activity(ies) from underground aquifers must not directly or indirectly influence the mobilisation of existing groundwater contamination on [the Linc site]," the environmental authority said.

It said the department may force Arrow to model CSG impacts on "groundwater contamination around [the Linc site] at any time" and present its findings within a month.

But there were no such conditions for gas drilling in the neighbouring Arrow tenement that surrounds the former Linc site, where six wells were approved in August…..

But will the Morrison federal government or the remaining seven state and territory governments learn from Queensland's disasterous mistakes?

Apparently not.........

2GB Radio, 24 May 2019:

The Minister for Resources is urging the New South Wales government to approve the state’s biggest gas project.

Santos Narrabri Gas Project is aiming to develop gas reserves in northwest New South Wales that could supply half of the state’s gas needs.

The Resources Minister Matt Canavan tells Ray Hadley almost all of NSW’s gas comes from other states.

“The problem with that is, of course, it costs a lot of money to transport gas long distances, so that has pushed the price up for Sydney based users of gas.

“Things have changed and we need to reflect that.”

The Canberra Times, 18 April 2019:

Federal Resources and Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan was in Darwin on April 17 to publicise an April 2 federal budget announcement of $8.4 million in funding to fast-track development of gas reserves in the Northern Territory's Beetaloo Basin.

"We want to get on with the job. We want to get the gas up out of the ground and into people's homes and businesses as quickly as we can," Senator Canavan said in a statement….

The Beetaloo Basin is about 500km south-east of Darwin in the Sturt Plateau region between the towns of Katherine and Elliott and includes pastoral land and indigenous communities. Around 70 per cent of the Territory's shale gas resources are estimated to lie in the Beetaloo Basin, reserves that could potentially raise Australia's global ranking of gas resources from seventh to sixth. Farmers, businesses and industry are divided over whether fracking should be permitted because of the risk of pollution to rivers and bores. Pro-fracking advocates argue it will be a boon for jobs and economic growth.