DEBATE over coal seam gas mining has hit the national headlines in recent months but for some locals, this battle has already disrupted five years of their lives.
The Hunter Bulga Gas Action Group began in 2006. It changed its name to the Hunter Valley Protection Alliance two years ago which subsequently gave birth to the national Lock the Gate protest group that now has a quickly growing membership with 116 individual groups involved as of Tuesday.
Graeme Gibson was one of those founding members.
He remembers a time when he and a few other residents of the quiet village of Broke noticed an unusual piece of equipment in a paddock near the local school.
Enquiries revealed it was a drill searching for coal seam gas.
Ten community members attended that first meeting at the local hall with limited research restricted to the horror stories of the Wyoming Powder River Basin.
“We saw the damage done to the vegetation by virtue of the salt, even back then there were stories of methane gas leaks and people setting fire to their tap water,” Mr Gibson said referring to the Gasland movie.
Back then the members wanted guarantees that their vineyards, the ground water, the fresh water acquifers, nearby streams and agricultural land would not be impacted by coal seam gas mining or its exploration.
Those basic demands remain the same but with five years of research under their belts, they also want further guarantees for the environment and residents’ health.
Those guarantees, backed with scientific evidence, remain outstanding.
Initially, Mr Gibson said residents were in shock that their pristine valley and vineyard livelihoods could be impacted by coal seam gas mining.
Now that mood has changed to anger.
And that anger is growing into a monumental movement opposed to an industry doing no favours for itself.
The coal seam gas industry public relations approach didn’t start well and over five years, the relationship between community and industry has been virtually destroyed.
The community is unconvinced the coal seam gas process is safe and will remain so until there is documented evidence to suggest otherwise.
Mr Gibson says the anti coal seam gas momentum is building.
Everyday the group is contacted by a new person on the coal seam gas bandwagon, loaded with their own research that people like Mr Gibson, have heard time and time again.
“It is draining, you hear the same stories over and over,” Mr Gibson said.
He finds little comfort in official responses.
“The industry says it will have an adaptive approach – if it finds a problem it will adapt.
“My question to them is if the Wollombi Brook disappeared, how will they adapt to that and more importantly, how will we adapt,” he said.
The debate has already gone political, an approach Mr Gibson said his alliance hoped to avoid.
“We thought we could talk but when the community consultation committee was disbanded in December last year, when plans for a memorandum of understanding to protect the vineyards was scrapped, when AGL are buying properties under our noses with no consultation, it appears there is little way forward other than to be political,” he said.
“I believe we are now approaching one of the biggest protests this country has seen.”
With that he reads a letter he received last week from a local woman.
She wrote she didn’t realise the risk was so great and she didn’t realise the group had put so much of its own money into fighting the cause. She thanked them with a $10,000 cheque.
There is room for compromise in this great debate of our nation and Mr Gibson admits he may be the supreme optimist when he dreams of such an outcome.
“We have to protect the Liverpool Plains, the government is mad if it doesn’t.
“There is an enormous amount of land that can be mined for coal seam gas that won’t upset any body, we need to protect local communities and prime agricultural land.
“There is no room for coal seam mining of gas near any acquifers, surface water systems and prime agricultural land.
“You cannot put at risk land that can produce food for the sake of a few years of coal seam gas mining.”
Agriculture NSW is currently preparing a map showing strategic agricultural land in the Upper Hunter and Gunnedah regions.
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