What might one risk associated with coal seam gas mining look like?

 

There has been some talk in the Australian media about land subsidence and sinkholes suddenly occurring overseas.

 

In June 2012 the Australian Water Commission published a CSG water management position paper which stated:
  

Potential risks to sustainable water management 

• Extracting large volumes of low-quality water will impact on connected surface and groundwater systems, some of which may already be fully or over allocated, including the Great Artesian Basin and Murray-Darling Basin. 

• Impacts on other water users and the environment may occur due to the dramatic depressurisation of the coal seam, including: - changes in pressures of adjacent aquifers with consequential changes in water availability - reductions in surface water flows in connected systems - land subsidence over large areas, affecting surface water systems, ecosystems, irrigation and grazing lands. 

 

Now this clearly identifies risk, but doesn’t give any idea of what land subsidence might look like for NSW property owners and residents unlucky enough to experience it.

 

Sinkholes range in size from square meters to square hectares in size.

They usually form when there is either a collapse of an underground cave, or mining/excessive groundwater flow creates unstable soil/bedrock conditions, or mining results in water pressure levels changes in a natural aquifer which cannot sustain the weight of rock and soil above it.

 

This 2011 sink hole in Gosford NSW was caused by a leaking underground sewer:

 

 

In 2012 this sinkhole appeared in a Sydney suburb:

 

 

Another small sinkhole which opened up at Ocean Shores NSW in 2013:

 

 

Yet another sinkhole in Newcastle NSW on a residential property which
sits atop old mine workings:

 

 

One of the fourteen homes in one suburb damaged due to mine
subsidence in the Newcastle area last year:

 

 

House collapse due to mine subsidence in Newcastle NSW in 1953:

 

 

This is a very old natural sink hole in the mining town of Mt. Gambier
SA caused by cave collapse:

 

1925 to 1977 markers showing land subsidence due to over extraction
of groundwater in San Joaquin Valley, California USA

Letter to the Editor sparks Ballina Shire Council investgation

 

On 18 March 2013 The Northern Star reported that Ballina Shire Council was not happy with a particular Letter to the Editor:

 

The council's general manager, Paul Hickey, has confirmed the publication this week of the confidential figures had led to the launch of an investigation about where Mr Kelly got his information from, and a possible breach of the Code of Conduct which applies to staff and councillors.

The issue of council acting as a developer has been around for some time and, Vince Kelly raised the matter in 2009 and again in 2012 when he also wrote this letter to Echonetdaily.

Given that Vince Kelly appears to watch council closely and speak to any number of people, I imagine that Paul Hickey may find it difficult to track down the person who informed the content of Kelly’s last letter.

Kelly should take heart – he could live further south where Clarence Valley Council management have turned losing money into an art form.

Here is that last letter in the Echonetdaily online which is currently causing Ballina local government angst:

 

Council prefers property over pool

Vince Kelly, East Ballina

Ballina Shire Council has again preferred commercial property speculation ahead of community infrastructure. This time it is in respect to an indoor heated swimming pool.

On February 26 Ballina Council’s Commercial Services Committee met in secret to consider two offers to purchase council’s commercial site in Tamarine Drive. But property markets being what they are nothing stays secret for long.

At the meeting Council rejected a fair value cash offer of $860,000 from a private consortium. They planned to build a new indoor heated pool and gymnasium within twelve months.

Council accepted a ‘cash and land swap’ offer of $1.2 million from Fire and Rescue NSW, who plan to build a new fire station. The purchase consideration comprises cash of only $500,000 and the transfer of the exiting fire station in Crane Street to the council for a non cash consideration of $700,000.

The $700,000 is an inflated figure fabricated by Council’s Commercial Services Division and substantially overvalues the fire station. This portrays the Firies’ offer of $1.2 million as more generous. But when the true value of the fire station is factored in the two offers are comparable.

On a cash basis the consortium’s offer is substantially better as ratepayers receive $860,000 in cash compared to the Firies’ offer of only $500,000 in cash. With the consortium’s offer the community obtains a new indoor heated swimming pool, gymnasium and additional lifestyle facilities. Ratepayers’ funds will not be required to build and maintain the facility or cover the ongoing operating costs.

With the Fires’ offer ratepayers receive $360,000 less in cash and a special purpose building with restricted usage. The property is of little strategic benefit and does nothing to assist Council meet the community’s expectations regarding infrastructure delivery.

At its Finance Committee meeting on March 4 Council discussed building its own indoor heated pool adjacent to Ballina swimming pool. This will cost ratepayers at least $2 million and it will not be ready for about two years. Plus there will be ongoing maintenance and operating costs.

If the consortium’s offer had been accepted there would have been a cash generation of $2.86 million which could have been used to fund other infrastructure projects.

Of course the acceptance of the Firies’ offer does not make sense when compared to the consortium’s offer. So why did the council decide in favour of the Firies? Is there a hidden agenda? Well yes, there is!

You see, Council already owns properties adjoining the Crane Street fire station and Council is more interested in consolidating a future commercial development site than providing community infrastructure.
 

UPDATE

This is the letter to the editor in The Northern Star on 21 March 2013 which took the fire out of Paul Hickey's bullish game of hunt-the-councillor:

Council secrecy

The general manager of Ballina Shire Council, Mr Paul Hickey, has merged the separate issues of secrecy and confidentiality (Concern over leaked figures N/S 18/3).

I described the Commercial Services Committee meeting as a 'secret meeting' because Mr Hickey did not disclose the nature of the business transaction in the agenda.

Was this a deliberate ploy to stop ratepayer opposition to a commercial transaction which was perhaps not in their best interest?

It is hard to object to something if you do not know what it is about. It was only after the minutes of the meeting had been posted on the council's website that it was confirmed that councillors had approved a land swap with Fire and Rescue NSW. Mr Hickey's secret was out.

Mr Hickey has been reported as saying that "Fire and Rescue had asked council that we not release any information in respect to this matter".

So did Mr Hickey advise the councillors that the way in which they had expressed their resolution would not comply with the wishes of the firies?

If there has been a breach of council's code of conduct who is the real culprit?

Council's Tamarind Drive property has been on the market for several years and has been commented on in numerous council reports which are public documents.

There is a lot of information in the marketplace about council's property holdings and activities.

If Mr Hickey wants to play monopoly and wheel, deal and speculate in freely traded property markets with ratepayers' money then he needs to understand that information about his activities will find its way to the marketplace. The market is dynamic and full of rumours, hearsay and facts.

Market intelligence is continually being gathered, filtered, dissected and analysed by people who will comment and opine on a whole range of issues.

Transactions are continually being negotiated, finessed and documented.

Often there are many players involved in both sides of a deal.

Just because Mr Hickey submits a business paper on one of his property proposals to a council meeting and the councillors resolve to consider it in a confidential session does not mean that the information is not already in the marketplace.

It is only councillors and council staff who are subject to a confidential resolution.

It does not apply to the general public who may be in possession of the information.

Vince Kelly

East Ballina

When Richard met Eddie

In 1999 George Richard Torbay contested and won the NSW seat of New England as an independent.
In 2013 he intended to stand for Federal Parliament as a National Party candidate.
On the 20th March he suddenly resigned from the NSW Parliament and from the Nats, allegedly because his relationship with Eddie Obeid has been referred to ICAC. He also resigned as UNE Chancellor.
Richard and Eddie Obeid came into contact early in his political career and the Torbay-Obeid connection was so well-known it was raised in parliament over 5 years ago.

The Green Left on the 23rd June 1999:

“On January 19, around 100 protesters constructed four tripods on Timbarra Road. Police panicked at the size of the protest and reacted violently, arresting 12 protesters. In early May, more than 100 protesters blockaded the access road between Tenterfield and the mine site. Ross Mining and its government supporters are moving to clamp down on the campaigners. A delegation of Tenterfield local government leaders, Ross Mining executives and local MP Richard Torbay are to meet with NSW resources minister Eddie Obeid later this month. Torbay threatened: "I support people's right to protest in an orderly manner, but I am concerned that protesters seem intent on disruption, regardless of the merits of the mine. I will be working hard to change the laws to protect companies that are doing the right thing." Ross Mining admits that it plans to use 700 tonnes of cyanide each year to extract gold from the mine. One gram of cyanide is the lethal dose for humans. The mine will also use 75 tonnes of caustic soda and 60 tonnes of hydrochloric acid to extract 50,000 ounces of gold, worth $20 million a year. These chemicals represent a significant environmental threat to the region because the mine is on a highlands, which feed into the Clarence River.”

Part of a Melinda Pavey MLC motion listed in the NSWLC Notice Paper for 27^th February 2007:

“That this House further notes:

(b) the continued close relationship of the Honourable Eddie Obeid as a strategist with the Member for Northern Tablelands, Richard Torbay’s Independent Party,

(c) that the Honourable Eddie Obeid was instrumental in Labor’s decision not to run in the Dubbo by-election last November, deserting the local ALP membership and providing back door support to Richard Torbay's candidate Dawn Fardell,”

Granny Herald on 23rd November 2008:

“He said politics is tougher and crueller than he had anticipated. During one campaign, he says, some Nationals apparatchiks played the race card, suggesting to anyone who'd listen that he was related to unpopular Labor right-wing number cruncher Eddie Obeid, also of Lebanese background. "I had to remind them that there were lots of people from Lebanon I wasn't related to."

Tony Abbott's 'Australians for Honest Politics Trust' may come under the legal spotlight

Former One Nation Co-founder states intention to sue Liberal Party Leader Tony Abbott

Making sure that one remnant of the Howard era, NGO gag orders, never surfaces again

Introduced into the Australian Senate on 13 March 2013:

A Bill for an Act to prohibit Commonwealth agreements from restricting or preventing not-for-profit entities from commenting on, advocating support for or opposing changes to Commonwealth law, policy or practice, and for related purposes.

The Bill engages and promotes the right of freedom of expression as set out in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Right (ICCPR). The Bill will prevent the Commonwealth from including clauses in agreements that prevent or restrict NFP entities from advocating on Commonwealth policy issues.

What will the Australian Press Council do about this?

The Daily Telegraph's blatantly false Page One headline of 18 March 2013

Mr Denmore ‏@MrDenmore

Oh, the author of The Tele's carbon collapse fiction is our friend Steve Lewis, he of Ozcar and Ashby fame.

Mr Denmore ‏@MrDenmore

The Tele's source for the 'carbon collapse' are unnamed 'experts'. Odd as the share market is at a 4-year high and business confidence is up

Yesterday morning I happened on these two tweets and this snapshot on Twitter. Given New Limited's involvement in the current hysteria surrounding the Federal Government's response to the 2011 and 2012 independent media reviews, I went to that day's issue of The Daily Telegraph and this is what I found. The Daily Telegraph's Steve Lewis and Phil Jacob are asserting that: New data from the corporate regulator reveals insolvencies have hit a record high over the past 12 months, led by widespread failures in manufacturing and construction, which accounted for almost one-fifth of collapses. The Australian Securities & Investments Commission reports there were 10,632 company collapses for the 12 months to March 1 - averaging 886 a month - with the number of firms being placed in administration more than 12 per cent higher than during the global financial crisis. While the high Australian dollar is seen as the main factor behind manufacturing closures, experts say the carbon tax is adding to increasing cost burdens for many firms struggling to stay afloat. The first problem with this statement is that it is plain wrong. The "10,632" figure does not come from a twelve month period ending on 1 March this year - this total is for the 2012 calendar year. A clue for these two journalists might have been found in the fact that the data set was released on 18 February 2013. What The Daily Telegraph journalists also do not say is that in the total figure quoted almost half of these external administration/insolvencies occurred before the introduction of the 'cabon tax' and, that prior to the tax, in February-March 2012 there were 2,137 insolvencies which made this the highest combined figure for two consecutive months in a data set which begins in 1996. As for the more than one business is going the wall every hour in Australia found in text in the snapshot above - I suggest that The Daily Telegraph invest in new batteries for the office calculator as that Page One assertion is wrong on so many levels. So what else in that Lewis-Jacob article is open to question? Well, let me start with Grain Products Australia the country’s only manufacturer of caramel and dextrin and one of only two wheat starch and gluten manufacturers. A company in liquidation since 11 March this year and one the journalists try hard to mold into a carbon tax victim. Over six months before the introduction of the carbon price, this company went into voluntary administration citing the high cost of wheat and what were then solely state electricity charges. That leaves Penrice Soda Holdings the only Australian soda ash manufacturer. It was quoted by the Lewis-Jacob team as saying that the reason it was ceasing local raw material quarrying and importing its soda ash was that the carbon tax was effectively the straw that broke the camel's back. However, a little basic fact checking would have shown that last February it told its shareholders and the Australian Stock Exchange that the factory closure was reflecting deteriorating demand conditions in soda ash and quarry material markets as well as impacts from a high Australian dollar. There was not one word about the carbon tax. Finally, the biggest whopper these two journalists told about the business sector in 2012 which is this line; with the number of firms being placed in administration more than 12 per cent higher than during the global financial crisis. The Global Financial Crisis began in 2007-08 and did not lose momentum until 2009-10. Even the most mathematically challenged News Limited employee would realise that the business external administration/insolvency totals for those years far exceed the 2012 total which The Daily Telegraph is currently treating as an end of days event. So what will the Australian Press Council do about a newspaper which so distorts the facts and journalists whom I'm told now know that they have based their 10,632 company collapses on a dodgy premise? Why its twenty-three members will pretend that they never saw or heard of this article - unless a member of the public makes a formal complaint. UPDATE: The Leader of the Opposition makes the mistake of relying on the Lewis-Jacob article during the House of Representatives Question Time on 18 March 2013. A reliance the Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, notes during that same Question Time: ...over the last couple of days the Leader of the Opposition, the New South Wales government and the Daily Telegraph have been misleading the public yet again about the impact of carbon pricing. Yesterday it was a false claim about electricity prices in New South Wales. Today the Daily Telegraph is back with ridiculous claims about economic catastrophe, repeated here today in the very first question by the Leader of the Opposition—there seems to be some commonality of approach that we are witnessing. The Telegraph story today takes the misuse of statistics, hysterical headlines and distortion of facts to levels that would have done Pravda proud during the height of the Cold War.

One young regional journalist is man enough to eat humble pie

Unlike many of his big city counterparts, The Daily Examiner  journalist Lachlan Thompson is prepared to admit that he misread the political runes when it came to concerns about coal seam:

It is time for me to eat some humble pie.

After attacking Member for Page Janelle Saffin for speaking out about CSG for the sole purpose of gaining votes, it appears the Federal Government is united on this issue.

It is now set to take action and I owe Ms Saffin an apology.

The company holding petroleum exploration licences in the Valley, Metgasco, has decided to suspend its activities on the North Coast.

Metgasco said it is because of changes in state, not federal regulations.

Frankly, when I saw the NSW Government's regulatory changes, I thought they had as much sturdiness as a soaked toilet roll.

The reason was they did not seem to prevent companies from putting CSG wells in rural residential areas like Glenugie.

The federal legislation, on the other hand, could mean no wells go ahead unless the science on this issue is completely clear. I hope the Gillard government can move this legislation through before the election.

Lachlan’s willingness to re-evaluate his previous opinions is refreshing and well done.