New regulations not what they seam

The 60-day moratorium on fracking during coal seam gas drilling has been extended by five months but local anti-gas groups say the NSW Government’s regulations are tokenistic and still don’t go far enough.

Last Thursday Minister for Resources and Energy Chris Hartcher announced new rules for CSG mining and exploration, including a ban on the use of BTEX chemicals (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene) during CSG drilling.

The moratorium will now be valid until December 31, there is a ban on the use of evaporation ponds, and there are new public consultation guidelines. Gas companies will also have to hold a water access licence to extract more than three-megalitres per year from groundwater sources.

The new regulations address fracking in CSG but not conventional gas drilling and Metgasco CEO Peter Henderson would not rule out fracking in conventional gas drilling, although he says the company has no plans for any to take place in 2011.

“Certainly not this year… there’s a chance in the future we may want to do fracking of conventional gas but that’s sometime off,” he said. “We think it’s positive the government is taking a lead with these regulations… the community wants to be comfortable CSG companies are behaving as we say we are.”

Metgasco’s chief operating officer Mick O’Brien told The Echo said the company had done one hydraulic fracture hydraulic fracture at its Kingfisher site near Casino (“Metgasco goes deep into CSG”, Echo, March 3) where they found the largest conventional gas field, although Mr Henderson now claims it was a “nitrogen foam” frack and said this may be used in the future rather than hydraulic fracking.

Boudicca Cerese from Kyogle Group Against Gas – now part of a collaborative of 10 groups campaigning against CSG – said the NSW Government simply “wants to look as if it’s doing something” to quiet the growing unrest surrounding the industry.

“They are still not addressing a lot of the issues,” Boudicca said. “They do not address the disposal of produced water (extracted from coal seam during gas production), which is often toxic and/or saline due to the chemicals, salt, heavy metals and even BTEX chemicals present in the coal seam. There are still issues with de-watering of the coal seam causing a drop in groundwater due to interconnected aquifers as well as the possibility of contamination of good quality aquifers from toxic coal seam water. All of these problems exist even when the fracking process isn’t used and the regulations only apply to new operations so its business as usual for existing CSG operations.”

Mr Hartcher said communities should be confident they had “a receptive ear” in government and the NSW Government was in the process of developing a new online resource to provide details of licence approvals and conditions while also developing stricter protocols for the Review of Environmental Factors.

“These communities cannot be expected to come to an informed conclusion about exploration and mining activities unless they have access to accurate scientific facts and information,” Mr Hartcher said. “The level of public access we will be providing is unprecedented.”

Boudicca said with the industry looking to provide for 30% of NSW’s energy needs into the future it had to be regulated properly right from the beginning.

“What we’re really asking for is a ban on all coal seam gas activity until it can be proven safe for the environment and the community... there’s just this rush to go ahead with gas production without knowing what the impacts are,” Boudicca said. “We’re saying stop and do the necessary studies into the environmental, health, economic and social impacts... we can’t make an adequate regulatory framework until we have the baseline data and the studies just haven’t been done because it’s such a new industry.”

Mr Henderson said the NSW Government’s measures were an important step in re-assuring the community of the “safety and environmental sustainability of the CSG industry” but Michael McNamara, CSG co-ordinator for the Northern Rivers Guardians, said the recent CSG Senate inquiry in Queensland should be “ringing alarm bells” for the NSW Government.

“There has been evidence presented by farmers who are devastated by the impacts of coal seam gas wells on their properties. They are deeply concerned about the potential loss of food producing areas and the contamination of their land and water,” he said. “In NSW we have the opportunity to learn from Queensland’s mistakes and our government should take serious actions to address the risks of coal seam gas, not continue with these ineffectual attempts at window dressing the problems.”