We'll publish and be damned

Peter Stone, director of the new Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance (GISERA) that will investigate coal seam gas mining, says $10 million in funding from Australia Pacific LNG does not compromise the new body’s position.

Dr Stone, the deputy chief of CSIRO ecosystem sciences, bristles at any suggestion there is a conflict of interest for the CSIRO.

“The CSIRO is Australia’s most trusted organisation and it jealously guards its status as Australia’s most trusted organisation. We wouldn’t do anything to materially harm that,” he said.

He said the national organisation had spent over a year ensuring GISERA preserved CSIRO’s research independence.

“GISERA will always be at arm’s length from commercial interests... we’re not doing work that is designed to improve the profits or advance the competitive advantage of the companies,” he said. “We’re not doing research about sucking gas from the ground and making it more profitable, we’re looking at the social and environmental impacts... it’s public good research.”

The CSIRO is putting $4 million towards GISERA, which will research five key areas related to CSG mining in the gas fields of Queensland – biodiversity, agricultural land management, ground water and surface water, the marine environment and social and economic impacts.

He said all research would be peer reviewed by CSIRO scientists and made publicly available no matter what the content revealed.

“There will be complete public access for people who love or loathe coal seam gas,” he said. “The CSIRO is used to calling it as it sees it... sometimes we’ll be saying things that disappoint the coal seam gas industry, sometimes things that disappoint lobby groups, sometimes probably things that disappoint both. That’s what we do.”

He also said in the course of field studies, if the CSIRO found any risk to human or environmental health or safety, they would immediately alert the relevant authorities.

Dr Stone said through community consultation they were now working out exactly what research projects to undertake and expected the research would begin in about a month. He said it would take around three years to complete but useful results would be available within a year.

Dr Stone would not be drawn on policy surrounding the industry nor the NSW Government’s new conditions on CSG mining licences and said this was part of preserving independence. He believes the speed at which the industry is growing will not undermine the usefulness of the research.

“I appreciate people perceive a rapid expansion of the industry, but there are logistical constraints to the rate at which the industry can expand... if people have in mind a given area, I’ll pick a number, say 1000 wells, the industry usually lacks the capacity to put them in all at once. In most places people are likely to see a staggered development.

“Because the industry will unfold in a staggered way there is an opportunity to get more and better data as the industry progresses and that’s what GISERA is designed to do.”