NSW farmers against gas fields on agricultural land or in vicinity of rivers, lakes and underground water

The Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2020:

Local farmers are spoiling for a fight with the State government over plans to dig hundreds of gas wells across NSW’s most fertile countryside.

A proposed $3 billion project to drill 850 coal seam gas wells between Narrabri and Gunnedah would be a “climate crisis” according to farmers in north west NSW, who hold grave fears for the future of livestock, cropping and human drinking water.

The NSW Department of Planning last week approved the proposal after a drawn out three-year process, which means the final hurdle is sign-off from the Independent Planning Commission.

A NSW Farmers branch representing hundreds of farmers across the Liverpool Plains voted unanimously to call on its peak industry body to up the ante in its opposition to the coal seam gas project.

The Gunnedah and Tambar Springs branch of NSW Farmers has formally requested its parent body lobby the government to scrap the Narrabri coal seam gas project and extinguish 11 expired and inactive petroleum exploration licences dotted around the region.

Santos Narrabri Gas project has raised alarm among farmers over the future of livestock, cropping and human drinking water in the area. Picture: Nathan Edwards.

Santos has claimed the project won't compromise the Great Artesian Basin – the world’s largest underground freshwater tank, big enough to fill Sydney Harbour 130,000 times – but farmers maintain there is too high a risk it could deplete and irreparably contaminate the aquifer.

"What my members are saying is they can produce food and fibre without gas, but they can’t do it without water,” branch secretary and wheat farmer Xavier Martin said.

“The Berejiklian government is not listening so NSW Farmers has to escalate this.”

Farmers see the Narrabri project as a “Trojan horse”, which if approved will encourage gas miners to fire up 11 expired and largely inactive petroleum exploration licences in the state’s north west from the Upper Hunter and Liverpool Plains north to Moree and west to Coonamble.