CENTRAL Downs irrigators remain frustrated by State Government policies that allow coal seam gas companies to extract millions of litres of water from underground sources while farmers face significant and uncompensated cutbacks to their own allocations from the same resource. Central Downs Irrigators chairman Johannes Roellgen, Tyunga, Pampas, said irrigators were committed to ensuring the […]
The coal seam gas (CSG) industry being developed in Queensland could create huge amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane, a Climate Institute scientist says.
“With thousands of potentially unregulated, unmonitored bores coming on-line in the next few years, we could see a massive spike in Queensland’s methane emissions.”
Methane is many times more potent a greenhouse pollutant than carbon dioxide CSG . . and will hugely increase the amount in the atmosphere.
Members of the Basin Sustainability Alliance say at least two Queensland Government documents show that CSG water is extracted directly from the Walloon Coal Measures, which is an aquifer of the Great Artesian Basin.
The same document also identifies that the amount of water available for allocation from the Walloon Coal Measure under the Resource Operations Plan is zero megalitres.
A December 2008 scoping study on the ground water impacts of the Coal Seam Gas development was commissioned by Queensland’s Department of Infrastructure and Planning and shows the Walloon Coal measures will be “dewatered” as part of the planned Coal Seam Gas industry developments
An underground coal gasification (UCG) pilot plant at Kingaroy, 210km northwest of Brisbane, was closed down earlier this month after traces of the cancer-causing chemicals benzene and toluene were found in bores near the plant.
“It is our commitment to legislate to ban them from ever being used in Queensland,” he said. “The message is very clear, no one is allowed to use these chemicals in the extraction of coal seam gas.
THE Bligh Labor government today all-but confirmed it lacked the technical expertise to monitor the impact of gas exploration and extraction on the Great Artesian Basin.
The Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, postponed until October 11 a decision granting environmental approval to the Gladstone and Curtis Island liquefied natural projects. A spokesman said the delay would allow Mr Garrett to obtain more information on the impact of the projects, which the Queensland government approved this year. The Basin Sustainability Alliance said Mr […]
WHY do landholders appear to have so little power in negotiations with mining companies, when key sections of the Queensland Petroleum and Gas Act 2004 emphasise protection of landholder interests?
“The Minister has not set guidelines, so they (petroleum companies) have had a free run in how they consult with land-owners, if at all.”
“The Minister is giving the industry the exemption to do whatever it likes by failing to set guidelines.”
An article from the U.S. – but it could be talking about the Darling Downs in Qld.
“It all happened too quickly, Volz said. “What was the rush?” he asked rhetorically.
“You would have thought we would have learned our lesson,” he said, referring to the state’s legacy of pollution problems with coal and other minerals.”
THE Great Artesian Basin — one of the largest underground water reservoirs in the world — is in danger of going the same way as the ailing Murray-Darling Basin because of reckless corporate abuse, aided by political ignorance, says South Australian senator Nick Xenophon. The independent senator will tell a groundwater conference in Adelaide today […]
Gillard looks to US for ‘green’ jobs Updated: 16:49, Saturday October 3, 2009 So the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is flying to the United States on a mission to see how it is creating more ‘‘green’’ jobs. We could have saved her the trouble – and the considerable expense. What could possibly be cleaner […]
EPA investigates coal seam gas leak in Sydney