coal seam gas
23 Aug 2011
The Illawarra Doesn't Want CSG Either
By Benjamin Vozzo
Another community meeting, another set of locals unhappy about gas drilling in their region and frustrated with the consultation process. Benjamin Vozzo reports from Thirroul in the Illawarra
Ormil Energy managing director Tom Fontaine was grilled on Sunday at a public forum to discuss coal seam gas (CSG) exploration in the Illawarra. Indeed, he was clearly frustrated by the event.
"The best way to stop CSG Illawarra, to stop CSG everywhere, is to turn your bloody lights off and quit using your air conditioners. If there was not the demand for energy, I wouldn’t be out there trying to find energy," he exclaimed.
Fontaine was unable to allay the fears of the 200 locals who packed into the Thirroul District Community Centre for information on the industry’s plans for the region.
Appearing frustrated and bemused at the level of concern raised, Fontaine compared CSG to the region’s long standing coal mining industry.
"We’re honestly confused … if we’re taking less things out of the ground, how can it all of a sudden be worse?", he asked. "We’re capturing the gas, we’re not releasing it into the atmosphere, we’re producing the same water that has come from all these millions of tonnes of coal that have already been mined, and we’re disposing of it in similar ways."
Fontaine reiterated his company’s vow never to use fracking to extract potential coal seam gas deposits in the area.
However, Southern Highlands farmer and former executive director of Caltex, Alan Lindsay, expressed doubt about whether Fontaine could make such a guarantee.
"I don’t think we are actually dealing with the people who are actually going to produce the gas from the field," he said. "I am worried, and I think all you should be worried, about who comes next, and whether they think fracking is a good thing or a bad thing."
Lindsay outlined that it was very likely that the two companies that hold Petroleum Exploration Licences in the Illawarra, Apex Energy and Ormil Energy, would not be the companies extracting the gas should vast deposits be found during exploration.
The discussion about fracking continued, with Dr Helen Redmond from Doctors for the Environment citing a lack of transparency on the chemicals used in the controversial process.
"In Australia, the chemical additives that are used in fracking haven’t actually been assessed for that use, and most haven’t been assessed at all by our national chemical regulator. Nor is there any mandatory requirement for gas companies to disclose exactly what they use," she said.
Redmond outlined how one particular exploration licence held by Apex and Ormil surrounds Lake Burragong, which is a part of Sydney’s drinking water supply vessel, Warragamba dam.
The response from the crowd was unanimous when she asked, "Do we really want to take the risk with the drinking water catchment for 4.5 million people?"
Redmond also addressed the uncertainty surrounding the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from CSG.
"A full life-cycle analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions of CSG has not been undertaken in Australia. Fugitive emissions of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas in itself, and production methods of CSG, need to be taken into account," she said.
The O’Farell Government did not send any representatives to the forum and was criticised in absentia for allowing the industry to proceed before considering the full environmental and social impacts of coal seam gas extraction.
"The legislation that governs this industry dates back to 1991… and doesn’t even mention CSG. The sorts of issues that we have with the nature of CSG are not covered by any legislation at the present moment, and that has to change," said Alan Lindsay.
Principal Solicitor at the Environmental Defender’s Office, Kirsty Ruddock, supported Lindsay’s call for tougher regulation of the industry.
"One of the biggest problems that we’ve seen at the EDO is the cumulative impacts … the fact that we’re not looking across the spectrum at what’s going on at a particular water catchment, or we might not be looking at what’s going on in a particular local government area," said Ruddock. "These assessments are done project by project, and that is one of the big deficiencies in the law," she added.
The crowd was not impressed when Fontaine became fed up with the barrage of questions directed at him during the Q and A part of the forum. That was when he told the locals to turn their lights off.
Commenting on his performance during the forum, local resident Toni Riddell said, "it was platitudinous, it was inaccurate, it was scientifically vague. And if that’s the degree of their skill for their mining, then I have grave concerns about letting them dig a hole two foot deep."
Jess Moore of Stop CSG Illawarra, the group who organised the forum, also rejected Fontaine’s claim that Ormil Energy had engaged in ongoing dialogue with the community about their projects.
"To this day, Tom Fontaine has never returned a phone call of mine," she said, "and I think he did nothing to alleviate people’s concerns."
Apex Energy has approval to drill 15 CSG exploration boreholes in the Illawarra. In June they were, together with Ormil Energy, granted authority to drill a single exploration well within the Burragorang region south west of Sydney.
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- Rationalist
Posted Tuesday, 23 August 11 at 6:09PMThe Illawarra is the region that needs CSG exploration the most. Their primary high paying employment base (steel) is dying and there is nothing but mining and gas exploration to take that up. Mining and gas exploration pays extremely well, in excess of what the steel industry pays so to restrict the growth of gas exploration in the Illawarra would be immoral for the families of former and current steelworkers.
- Physicist
Posted Tuesday, 23 August 11 at 7:20PM“Nothing but mining and gas exploration”? What a narrow world “Rationalist” lives in! Look to the future - manufacturing of PV cells and solar hot water systems; massively-enhanced recycling; retrofitting of houses (we don’t NEED air conditioning in the Illawarra!); biogas production; manufacturing and maintenance of plant for solar thermal, tidal, wind and wave energy, small-scale food production (some locals doing exciting things in this sector)…
Also, don’t make the mistake of assuming that the 3000-odd people in that photo are uneducated an uninformed. The more you know about hydrogeology, the more worried about CSG you are likely to be.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
The Illawarra Doesn't Want Coal Seam Gas
via newmatilda.com
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