New coal seam gas drill

Greens MLC Cate Faehrmann (left), Janine O’Brien and Greens Lismore candidate Susan Stock with the site of the coal seam gas exploration at Keerrong in the background.

Jerad Williams

AN independent inquiry is needed to decide whether mining companies can safely drill for coal seam gas without putting communities and their water supplies at risk, NSW Greens mining spokeswoman Cate Faehrmann has said.

Addressing a group of Northern Rivers Greens members and residents at Keerrong yesterday, Ms Faehrmann said the coal seam gas industry was so new Australian governments did not yet fully understand how it worked or its environmental implications and was relying on the mining companies to tell them what constituted safe practice.

Lismore Greens candidate Susan Stock, speaking ahead of the meeting, said the bad experience of US communities with coal seam gas drilling, depicted in the documentary Gasland, meant Australian communities and governments should be taking a cautious approach to gas drilling, even if the companies operating within Australia were operating to a higher standard to those in the US.

Those concerns focused on ‘fraccing’ – the process of fracturing rock to release trapped gas – and around the types of chemicals used during the process and the potential impact on groundwater.

Even without the chemical content there were concerns aquifers containing fresh and salt water could be breached in a single drill shaft, spoiling the fresh water, and that released methane gas coulddissolve into water, making it flammable.

Keerrong residents have been expressing concern about the drilling since Arrow Energy drilled anexploratory shaft on the flood plain beneath their homes.

Arrow has said the drilling was done to meet activity requirements on its mining lease, but the company was focused on the Surat Basin and would not look seriously at the Northern Rivers for many years, and may never do serious drilling here.

Metgasco, which is drilling near Casino, has said it does not use the toxic chemicals highlighted in the Gasland documentary and makes a point of not drilling near aquifers.

Resident Janine O’Brien said the level of investment in exploratory drilling left her sceptical aboutArrow Energy’s lack of interest in drilling on the Northern Rivers.

Setting up the exploratory drill site at Keerrong last year had involved the company building a weatherproof road through the property they were drilling on and building a new fence.

Ms Stock said she was concerned about the depth of some exploratory drilling, which she said went as deep as two kilometres under the ground and involved fraccing.

Ms Faehrmann said The Greens wanted a moratorium on drilling and an inquiry on its environmental, social, and economic impact.