PROTESTORS to coal seam gas exploration at Broke Fordwich took the fight to Sydney this week.
Angered and outraged by AGL Energy Limited’s coal seam gas exploration in the area, a protest was held outside the AGL annual general meeting yesterday.
Buses transported people from Broke, Pokolbin, Singleton, Muswellbrook, and Wollombi to Sydney where they were met with other protestors from Queensland and the Southern Highlands.
“It is essential that people are made aware that this is not just a localized issue and that around 30 groups across Australia are battling with coal seam gas exploration,” executive officer for the Hunter Valley Protection Alliance John Thompson said from Sydney yesterday.
Mr Thompson said three shareholders with AGL were able to put questions up at the meeting yesterday, but all three people were disappointed with the ‘glossy and in-direct’ answers received.
On Wednesday night around 100 residents met to be updated on the exploration wells in the Broke village and joined the fight to have the state government place a moratorium on all coal seam gas exploration until a comprehensive environmental assessment is completed.
The call for a moratorium has come from recent problems with leaking CSG wells in the United States and Queensland which has seen an overwhelming majority of senators in New York calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas extraction until the environmental impacts can be determined.
The concerns come from the “fracking” process which is used to extract the gas from the coal seams.
A cocktail of chemicals is used to ‘frac’ the coal seams.
Millions of litres of saline water containing these chemicals are removed from each well and put in evaporation ponds or trucked to water treatment plants.
The dumping of over 100,000 litres of saline water onto AGL’s ‘Windermere’ property has been one incident that has concerned residents.
Chinchilla resident and coal seam gas protester Dayne Pratzky, also known as ‘The Fracman’, spoke to residents about his own experiences with leaking gas wells and was involved with a recent segment on Channel 9’s 60 Minutes that showed wells leaking gas and water.
“We have 200 wells in our neighbourhood and 47 of them are leaking,” he told the group.
The community of Broke is in fear that the existing 10 exploration wells that have been installed in the area, including one located within 300 metres of the public school, will also leak.
“No one knows what effect these leaks have on people, what health impacts the chemicals in the water have, and all we are asking the government to do is place a moratorium on coal seam gas exploration until we know what can happen,” spokesperson for the Hunter Valley Protection Alliance Graeme Gibson said at the meeting.
“In that time we want protections put in place,” he said.
In New South Wales, AGL’s coal seam gas mining is currently not covered by state or federal water acts, nor is their exploration subject to the acts designed to protect the environment, the Protection of Environment Operat-ions Act.
AGL Energy Limited has a Petroleum Exploration License for the Hunter Gas Project area, which extends from the outskirts of Newcastle through to Scone and Merriwa, a total of 21,000 square kilometers of petroleum lease area.
On November 6, a forum of around 30 community groups from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland will convene in Broke to put out a common message to the public and government about getting a permanent change on the issue.
AGL say coal seam gas will be a net benefit for the Hunter Valley region, creating jobs, a reliable energy supply and local investments.
“As Australia moves to a lower carbon economy, coal seam gas will become an important energy resource and the Hunter Valley will play a pivotal role in the nation’s supply,” said Upstream Gas Group general manager Mike Moraza.
Mr Moraza said AGL had proved its gas projects could comfortably exist with other land uses and even operated a vineyard on its land in the Hunter to show gas can co-exist with agricultural activities.
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