Go ahead, we dare you

I wrote a poem after hearing about the latest decision on Bulga - it also applies to many other mining companies.

Go ahead, we dare you

We will make it hard

By holding up your work

If you drop your guard

Go ahead, we dare you

You’ll soon learn our goal

To make your dirty diggings

The most expensive coal

Go ahead, we dare you

As together we will stand

To make your fragile share price

The cheapest in the land

Go ahead, we dare you

We’ll put out the call

To banks and all investors

Ensuring that you fall

Go ahead, we dare you

We’ll wise up the nation

No coming to your aid

Or giving compensation

Go ahead, we dare you

Watch us rejoice and win

For what you plan to do

Is such a bloody sin.

Fight continues against CSG in NSW

The Green’s bill before the Legislative Council to prohibit coal seam gas in New South Wales was supported by the Labor Party with amendments, the Christian Democrat Party and the Animal Justice Party –with a vote of 16 for and 19 against.

Earlier it had been announced that the Shooters & Fishers Party were voting yes but during the debate Robert Brown was seen talking to LNP members. He then decided to be listed to speak and seemed to have a dummy spit about the earlier announcement that his party would vote yes. He said the SFP had a gas reservation policy to ensure an affordable domestic gas supply and that he would be voting no.

Bill to prohibit coal seam gas in NSW

I’m heading off to the NSW Parliament on Thursday 13 August as the Greens have a Bill in the Legislative Council to prohibit coal seam gas in New South Wales. The ALP have moved amendments to that Bill to give it a chance of passing with broad political support.

Lock the Gate is encouraging people to email members of the Upper House and to be there at 10am to show the community’s support for the bill.

Click here for more details. 

National Management of GAB

The Great Artesian Basin covers four states; NSW, Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory. What happens in one state can impact another and yet the states, using different criteria not a standard approach, decide where development can take place. Environmental studies for individual developments do not assess the impacts in other states, or the cumulative impacts on the whole GAB.

Similar to the Murray Darling River system which also covers four states, the water in the GAB has been exploited by successive state governments to fill the coffers with no regard for overall impacts. Without independent management the states bicker over water allocations for short term economic benefit, disregarding long term effects.

Risks to the GAB

Pilliga gas well

A paper published by the CSIRO in 2011 stated that ‘mining, manufacturing, and other industries use about 20% of all water consumed in Australia’. It recognised the fast growing mining industry, the risks it posed by discharging large quantities of water into the environment, and the resulting water management challenges.

Rob Banks’ outlines some of the risks to the Great Artesian Basin in an executive summary in his report on the Great Artesian Basin, published in December 2014.

Origins of the GAB’s Water

Since 1900 some of Australia’s and the world’s most respected scientists have argued about the origins of the water in the Great Artesian Basin. The common assumption was that any water taken out was replenished by rainfall.

Traditionally, the recharge for the GAB has been thought to be 30% of the basin, and that it was significant. The recently published information contained in this report shows clearly that effective recharge (>1 mm/yr) is only 6% of the GAB. (SoilFutures Report, p. 23)

Recent studies reveal that three theories apply to different sections of the basin and although it is replenished by rainfall it is at an alarmingly slow rate compared to the amount of water being taken out. The following are the three theories of the origins of the water in the GAB -

Rob Banks Researches the GAB

Coonamble NSW

Anne Kennedy, an advocate and campaigner for the protection of the Great Artesian Basin, was introduced to soil scientist Rob Banks by Penny Blatchford. Anne employed Rob to do a similar report to Penny’s, on the Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL 238) which covered her property near Coonamble in the West Pilliga district.

Part of Penny’s and Anne’s PELs were on the Great Artesian Basin’s (GAB) recharge areas. Anne’s PEL covered part of the Coonamble lobe area, where artesian water is the only reliable water source. After completing Anne’s study, the NSW Artesian Bore Water Users Association commissioned Rob to study the recharge and discharge areas of the GAB in NSW and the potential risks from CSG.

Meeting a Geomorphologist

Liverpool Plains

Robert Banks is a professional soil scientist and geomorphologist. If you’re like me, you’ll ask, “What’s that?” and now I can tell you, it’s someone who interprets how landscapes have evolved. I spoke with Rob in Gunnedah at the start of my gas tour to The Pilliga and southern Queensland.

Earlier I had studied the maps and read his report on recharge and connectivity in the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). I needed some points explained as my aptitude for understanding all things scientific is woeful. Luckily my brains trust has a science background, and this saved Rob from having to answer my first round of inane questions. But that’s what this blog’s about, getting me to understand how the GAB works and how it is being impacted by agriculture and industry. If I can understand it, anyone can!

Lots happening in CSG & coal

A lot has happened in the CSG and coal industries since I last wrote on my blog.

Fortunately, this month AGL’s leases over some of the Hunter and Sydney catchment areas have been bought back by the government and the proposed Camden Northern Expansion Project will not proceed.  Hoorah!

Unfortunately, AGL intends to continue with the Gloucester Project, which is in a very wet environment, where within a 100 metre square coal seam, there may be ten major faults running through to the surface. Boo!

Third of World's Big Groundwater Basins in Distress

NASA revealed on June 17 that one third of the world’s 37 largest groundwater systems are in distress. Fortunately the Great Artesian Basin is not one of them but two years has passed since the data was collected by satellite. 

Of the 37 aquifers studied 21 have ‘exceeded sustainability tipping points and are being depleted, with 13 considered significantly distressed, threatening regional water security and resilience’. The Canning Basin in Western Australia is one of these.

A companion paper published the same day concluded that ‘the total remaining volume of the world’s usable groundwater is poorly known, with estimates that often vary widely’.

Link to NASA maps and more information. 

Educating Kevin

"Coal seam gas is not a fossil fuel," said Nationals MP Kevin Humphries when he addressed a Chamber of Commerce meeting last night.

Mr Humphries has been the NSW National Party Member for Barwon since March 2007. Santos is drilling for coal seam gas in part of his electorate in The Pilliga, south of Narrabri. Gas and water are being extracted from the coal seam below the Great Artesian Basin in a recharge area.

Similar health issues in QLD & NSW

I am very concerned about Tara resident’s health issues, told to me on my recent tour of the gas fields in Queensland. I contacted Queensland Health and to date have not had what I call a satisfactory response to my emails. More questions need to be asked on this issue by everyone, not just people in Queensland.

I have since heard that 20 residents aged 3-78 living in Cawder, Spring Farm and Rosemeadow in south west Sydney are suffering similar problems to the people in Tara. A recent survey of these people, living less than one kilometre from AGL producing gas wells, reveals children with nose bleeds and both adults and children with headaches, eye irritations, itchy throats, hay fever and asthma symptoms. Sound familiar! All this in Sydney in an area forecasted to have an increase in population!

Beef Producers NVD Forms

Joe Hill's Angus cattle sale

The contamination of cattle is Joe Hill’s primary concern about CSG. A National Vendor Declaration form (NVD) is filled out by beef producers whenever they sell stock. Question five of the form asks ‘if in the past six months any of these animals have been on a property listed on the ERP database or placed under any restrictions due to chemical residues.’ The explanatory notes say ‘that if you don’t know you must tick yes’ and then nobody will bid on your cattle.

Joe’s concern is that his neighbour is irrigating with RO water and it has twice migrated onto his property, first in a flood and recently when a dam blew out. Other landholders are running beef cattle and have CSG extraction on their properties. If anyone says no to question five and the cattle are found to be contaminated, Joe believes that they will be liable even though they may not have been informed of a spill or any other contamination problem. No government body has confirmed or denied this despite him asking them many times.

Meat, Livestock & CSG

Joe Hill's Angus sale near Miles.
Courtesy of Karen Auty

A summary of a report published in August 2014 by the Meat & Livestock Association (MLA) pointed out the risks coal seam gas operations could have on livestock producing properties. As well as the usual risks to landholders, contamination of livestock on neighbouring properties is possible and the producer may have primary liability.

The Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) published Coal Seam Gas Operations on Livestock Properties in August 2014. The MLA commissioned law firm DLA Piper to prepare the report at the request of the Cattle Council of Australia (CCA) and the Australian Lot Feeders Association (ALFA). A summary of the report was sent out to CCA members and is now online. 

Neighbour's RO Water & Ring Tank

Ring Tank bursts near Miles. Courtesy of John Reid-Carew.

Since Joe Hill’s neighbour began irrigating with CSG water, treated in a reverse osmosis (RO) plant, he worried that this RO water might flow onto his property and into his dams. A flood in March proved he was right to worry. Then it happened again in May when the ring tank, in which the water was stored, burst its banks.

Ring tanks are huge above ground dams, built to store irrigation water. After irrigating a crop, the excess water runs off into tailwater drains, and it is supposed to be pumped back into the ring tank. During heavy rain in March, the water flowed over Joe’s neighbour’s tailwater drain and into Joe’s property. The area’s average rainfall is 570mm but sometimes 250mm can fall within 24 hours, causing severe flooding.

What to do with treated water

Irrigation near Chinchilla. Courtesy of Karen Auty.

‘We call the gas companies liars, cheats and thieves,’ said Joe Hill. ‘They lie to get on your place, they cheat you out of money they should be paying you and they thieve the water.’

Gas companies have to extract water from coal seams to get the gas out and keep it flowing. The water they suck out of an aquifer on one property, could be somebody else’s irrigation allocation on the other side of the river.

CSG, Bore Water & Bubbles in the Creek

Wambo Creek, Avenue Road,
south of Chinchilla

Gas companies, extracting lots of groundwater for CSG operations, are causing the water levels of aquifers to drop. ‘I don’t have a bore,’ said Joe Hill from Miles in Queensland, ‘but my next door neighbour has one. It’s about 1,100 feet into the Walloons aquifer but it’s dropped 60 metres and they estimate that around here it could drop up to 100 metres.’

‘A report named all the bores in the area that would eventually blow gas. Agreements were made with landholders to cap and seal these bores. The compensation paid only covered the cost of drilling one new bore, so if it’s no good you don’t have any more bore water. When a bore is capped, water and or gas sometimes comes up outside the casing.’

Agriculture & Mining Co-existance

Governments and the resource companies say that mining and agriculture can co-exist, but most farmers and graziers disagree.

About three years ago, after Arrow Energy produced a 6,000 page EIS (Environmental Impact Study), Joe Hill, from Miles in Queensland, attended a meeting at Cecil Plains. ‘Eight so-called experts told us that agriculture and CSG could coexist,’ said Joe. ‘After a while I got up and asked “How many of you know anything about agriculture, farming and livestock?” And not one of them knew a thing about agriculture. “So you blokes are out here telling all these people how we can coexist and you don’t even know how a farm works?” They didn’t know what to say to that. I don’t care who someone is, if they talk a lot of bullshit I get stuck into them.’

Do You Need a Gas Lawyer?

Queensland grazier Joe Hill only used a solicitor twice to write letters to CSG companies. The first one was to QCG about drilling in the melon hole country and having pits for the drilling sludge which could flow anywhere. He advised QGC that if any of the sludge came onto his property through the melon holes he would hold them responsible.

Melon holes (called gilgais in New South Wales) are natural depressions in clay soil varying in size, with a depth of six inches to six feet. During rain, they fill up with water and flow from one to the other, becoming a water course. Melon holes and gilgais are found from Northern New South Wales up to Emerald in Queensland. The Queensland Department of Environment & Heritage Protection (EHP) www.ehp.qld.gov.au maintains that melon holes are not a water course. Gas drilling is not allowed within 200m of a water course.

Keep Miners Off Your Property

Most people try to avoid lawyers because of the costs but when a CSG company approaches a landholder for access to their property they are advised by the gas companies to seek legal advice. Queensland grazier Jo Hill disagrees.

‘Why spend good, hard earned money on a solicitor when you can put up a no trespass sign for $150. The gas companies have signs on their freehold country so if it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for me. When a gas company rings up, you say, “You know my address, put it in writing,” and hang up the phone. You haven’t got to talk to them and they can’t make you. If you don’t want to sign an agreement they can’t force you to, and it is not an offence not to sign one. We’ve got all the right, they have no right.’

Joe Hill says NO to CSG

Joe Hill, an Angus cattle breeder from Miles, has been arguing with gas companies and government agencies since 2009 when gas test wells were first drilled in the area. Despite four companies attempting to put wells and infrastructure on his 2,000 acre property, it is one of the few in the area still gas free. I interviewed Joe on my recent trip to Queensland and this is the first in a series of blogs from that interview and from subsequent research and telephone conversations. Joe’s determination to keep gas companies off his land has resulted in a bend in a gas pipeline being named after him.

Mental Health & CSG

Roma man camp

‘The mental and financial stress of having a mining company knocking on your door is phenomenal, and not recognised,’ said Chinchilla resident, Karen Auty. ‘As a number of mining companies may have licences over different parts of the same property, some landholders have several coal or gas companies to negotiate with. They may negotiate with one company and then another takes over and they have to start again. This may go on for years.’

Landholders have been bullied into making quick decisions and threatened with legal action they simply cannot afford. Signing or not signing with a mining company will bring on the wrath of some neighbours or family. A divide and conquer strategy has worked for many years for big business.

Health Impacts of CSG

People living on lifestyle blocks of 30 to 800 acres just out of Tara in Queensland have been impacted the most by the CSG industry. As some of these blocks are off the grid, houses are powered by solar energy. The blocks are mostly too small to produce an income but owners run a few horses or cattle and grow their own vegetables.

‘Adults, who are sensitive receptors, and most children living in this area, have experienced nose bleeds, headaches, sore eyes, skin rashes and in some cases neuropathy,’ said Karen Auty. ‘A three year old boy runs around normally, then suddenly his limbs go limp, like a rag doll, sometimes lasting for 30 seconds or 20 minutes. The same child has lots of nose bleeds. Some people have breathing difficulties, which may bring on asthma, heart attacks or epilepsy which has not been experienced before.’

Noise & Air Pollution

'Beneficial water' is pumped into the dam
 in the distance for irrigation

Karen Auty from Chinchilla describes the noise generated by the infrastructure. ‘A gas well sits in a paddock on an acre or half an acre block of land that has been cleared, fenced and the ground pounded to give vehicles access. A metal box, like a garden shed, sits beside it housing a couple of diesel generators to keep the gas well going. Some of these are quite close to people’s homes. At night it’s very quiet in the bush so the noise is amplified and it doesn’t stop. You can’t turn the television up high enough and when you want to sleep you have to close your windows. Imagine having three or four noisy diesel engines running every night, 24 hours a day at your neighbour’s place. A gas well is a small piece of infrastructure.’

CSG and the governments revolving door

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald published and article by investigations editor, Anne Davies, into state and federal governments' staff and politicians moving into the gas industry and senior staff from gas companies moving into advising roles for ministers. Click here 

When I travelled in Queensland this was an issue that was brought up often. It is commonly believed that the gas companies in Queensland wrote the legislation, handed it to the government and they adopted it. Politicians and government staff know the loopholes and how to get legislation through. The rewards offered are staggering, according to one person I met who had been approached by a mining company. If you have no ethics it’s hard to refuse, but they did.

Save North-West NSW video

Lock the Gate's Video on why people do not want Santos drilling for CSG in North-West NSW is worth a look. Read in my blog about what has happened in Chinchilla in Queensland. More coming soon - it gets worse with air and noise pollution, and the human health impacts. Do we want this in NSW? Most people say NO! I recently visited the Santos site in The Pilliga, the recharge area of the Great Artesian Basin. I saw three areas devastated by spills and the project is not fully operational yet! Let's stop it before it is. Keep asking where are all the salts going.

Roads & Litter

CSG mining around Chinchilla has brought an enormous increase in traffic. Thousands of mine safe utes travel on the back roads and the Warrego Highway. Despite improvements to the highway, it now takes longer to travel to Dalby or Brisbane due in part to the speed limit being reduced from 110 kilometres an hour to 100.

‘The road toll went up by 25 percent in one year,’ said Chinchilla resident, Karen Auty. ‘Many others were injured. People are affected forever and that’s a huge unseen cost to the health system. People, unfamiliar with the area, drive after working very long hours, and go off the road. They are not used to kangaroos, emus and pigs jumping out in front of them. We have lots of 457s here. These overseas workers’ driving skills leave a lot to be desired.’

Chinchilla - Boom to Bust

'Beneficial water' from CSG runs into Chinchilla's water supply

The Chinchilla gas boom only lasted about four years, during the construction phase, which is the greatest employer of people. Major infrastructure, such as pipelines, dams, reverse osmosis plants and water and gas separation facilities were built.

House rental prices soared. Prior to the boom rents were stable. A three bedroom house with two bathrooms rented for $250 a week but this went up to $650-$700 a week. The most expensive, a five bedroom, five bathroom purpose built house cost $1,500 a week.

Chinchilla Before CSG

New well pad near Chinchilla

Karen Auty moved to the town of Chinchilla in Queensland’s Darling Downs in 2007. She was familiar with area as relatives lived there. It was a wealthy town surrounded by multimillion dollar cropping farms, watermelon farms and feed lots for beef cattle. The CSG industry was just starting but was not evident.

‘I moved to Chinchilla because house prices were affordable, the schools had a good name and it was a clean, tidy town with good people and clean country air. It had twelve churches and three pubs and a population of around 4,000. It’s the Bible belt, which is good and bad, but the good side is that you have neighbours you can trust. 

Help by Learning About CSG

Drilling rig near Miles, Queensland

I recently drove to Chinchilla in Queensland to find out about the effects of coal seam gas mining on a small country town since production began in 2006. I met Karen Auty, a resident of the town, who knows many people in the area who live on lifestyle blocks, productive farming land and in the town.

I interviewed Karen and am posting her comments along with my observations and research in a series of blogs on CSG education, before and after a gas boom, roads and litter, noise and air pollution, and health impacts, including mental health.

Hopeland Celebrates Gasfields Free Declaration Day

 Lock the Gate’s Drew Hutton, Shay Dougall & farmer Lee McNicholl

The Hopeland community in the Western Downs yesterday celebrated saying NO to coal seam gas (CSG) taking over their farmland, threatening their water supply and ruining their lifestyle.

About 30 locals gathered at a local property where Rev. Graham Slaughter of the Uniting Church accepted the declaration saying a massive 85 per cent of locals did not want the invasive gas.

Irrigation Ring Tank Bursts

Courtesy of John Reid-Carew

An irrigation ring tank has burst its banks, spilling treated water from Origin Energy's CSG mining onto a neighbouring property near Miles in Queensland. Joe Hill, a beef producer who has kept his property gas free (see blog How to Keep Miners Out 2/5/15), spoke to me last week about his concerns that the water his neighbour uses for irrigation may spill onto his property. Now it has.

Joe has just returned from Beef Australia, Australia’s national beef exposition held in Rockhampton where he was thrilled when his cow won Supreme Female of the Angus breed and was third in the Interbreed Champion of Champions. Joe has been breeding Bulliac Angus for over 25 years.

Hopeland Declaration Day

Central Processing Plant

A ten minute drive south of Chinchilla brings you to a small area called Hopeland, bordered by the Condamine River. This area of very old river flats with high quality soil is registered as priority agriculture land, similar to the Lockyer Valley and Liverpool and Cecil Plains. The area produces crops such as cotton, sorghum, chick peas and wheat.

Large gas infrastructure such as the Orana Central Processing plant is close by. Origin Energy is knocking on the doors of these multimillion dollar farms as they want to begin extracting CSG, starting with 171 wells at Hopeland. Some landholders have agreed while others have locked their gates and put up no trespassing signs.

A group of people against CSG has completed a survey of all the households in the area and 85 percent of people are against CSG. A Declaration Day will be held this Saturday May 16. This is significant. Hopeland has an extremely conservative community and it’s the first to be surveyed on the western Darling Downs and in the Western Downs Regional Council, which goes from Dalby almost out to Roma, a huge amalgamated shire.

The land at Hopeland will be farmed for hundreds of years. The gas may last for five years, the companies reckon they will get thirty years but can they ever rehabilitate the land and the aquifers?

Tree Pear & Prickly pear

When I left Goondawindi I could not help but notice what I thought were giant prickly pears but apparently they are not. They are tree pears. I am told that both are declared pests but the prickly pear has mostly been eradicated whereas the tree pear has not. Farmers are not so concerned about tree pear as they have few spines enabling cattle to eat them during a drought and it does not spread as fast as prickly pear. The tree pear has an deep orange flower and red fruit while the very prickly prickly pear has bright yellow flowers and dark purple fruit.

End of road tour but not the blog

Kenya Water Treatment Facility

I drove from Chinchilla to Kogan with a slight detour to see the Kenya water treatment facility, a monstrous building with huge dams and lucerne crops nearby. I saw ramshackle houses close to noisy gas wells. Then I headed to Dalby through fertile fields of cropping, studded with well-maintained houses, sheds and silos and on to Toowoomba.

The decent from Toowoomba surprised me and soon I was into four lanes of traffic, bumper to bumper. I hadn’t missed that.

Now I am in Byron Bay where I will spend a few days before heading home. This blog will continue to be updated as I go through my notes, interviews and do more research but it won’t be daily.

Chinchilla, rural to industrial

Gas well

Like many people from Chinchilla, Karen Auty escaped the city lifestyle in 2007 to live in a rural community free of pollution. Like others she was not perturbed when gas mining started in the area as she knew it had operated for many years further west at Roma.

Now Karen is an anti-CSG campaigner after seeing the affects it has had on her community. She has learnt about the mining process and how it is very different from the conventional gas mined at Roma. She has talked to people from the surrounding areas and has seen how CSG has adversely impacted their lives. The area most affected is Tara where there are small blocks of land and the industry has been operating for ten years. People, particularly children, are having higher than usual health issues, headaches, respiratory problems, bleeding noses and ears and a cancer cluster is suspected. People living within a 20km radius of the infrastructure are the most affected. The properties have lost their value making it difficult for anyone living there to freely move to a safer environment for their children or closer to better medical facilities if needed.

Keeping miners out

Joe Hill and his sign

Today I met Joe Hill, an Angus cattle breeder from Miles, who has refused to negotiate with or allow anyone from the CSG companies onto his property. He has a big ‘No Trespassing’ sign at his gate. One of the four gas companies that have an exploration licence over his land was forced  to put a bend in their pipeline to skirt his property. It’s known as ‘Joe’s Bend’.

Joe’s primary concern was the filling out of National Declaration Forms which are mandatory when selling cattle. This form requires farmers to declare if any chemicals have been used on their farm. If he had allowed a gas company on his property he could not honestly answer this question and if you are in doubt you have to declare it and that makes it very difficult to sell your cattle.

Roma Oil & Gas

The Big Rig at Information Centre, Roma

Roma is a place I really wanted to visit as I had recently come across several interesting stories about it during my research on the Great Artesian Basin. Roma is where the first natural gas was found in Australia.

The town has an average annual rainfall of 600mm. During a drought in 1900 it was short of water as the creek and a reservoir were inadequate. A bore was drilled to 1350 feet and water and gas gushed out but it took several years to know how to separate them. The problem was solved by sinking another bore inside the existing bore and driving it down to the gaseous strata. A gas plant was completed in 1906 and when shops and hotels were first connected and lit up, they became a public attraction. ‘It gives a perfectly white light, and most brilliant as displayed by the block burners and mantles.’

Ten days after connecting the first premises, the gas flow stopped. It was not known if it had run out, an obstruction blocked it or if the casing had leaked and the gas had found another way of escape. Experts were called in but the bore was not restored.

Moree to Roma

Victoria Hotel, Goondawindi

Today I drove from Moree to Goondawindi, The Gums, Surat and Roma, through towns I have not seen before. What surprised me most were the old buildings, which indicated the prosperity of this region in times gone by.

Cotton, on the roadsides, floated up whenever a car passed on the road between Moree and Goondawindi. Dust from a vast area of ploughed ground was visible from miles away. Goondawindi is a thriving cotton town on the border of NSW and Queensland. I visited the Goondawindi Cotton Shop but I was unable to buy anything because everything was made in China (see blog 29 April – My Protest to the Death Penalty).

Moree Bore Bath

After an exhausting couple of days I drove only as far as Moree today. I booked into a reasonably priced, clean motel close to the Moree Artesian Aquatic Centre and caught up on emails etc before heading to the baths.

I changed into a costume that hasn’t seen water for many years, then surreptitiously slid into the cooler of the two heated pools. The temperature, 38 degrees, was just right and my skin felt smooth and soft. My body slowly adjusted to the temperature, then I moved into the hotter pool, 40 degrees. When it became too hot, I returned to the cooler, more crowded pool. Groups of elderly tourists stood or sat around the perimeter of the pool, chatting and very few spoke English. Later, young people arrived at the complex. Some did laps in the Olympic size pool where the temperature was 26 degrees, then jumped in the spa pool to warm up between sessions with their trainers.

My Protest to the Death Penalty

My protest to the executions in Indonesia is to not knowingly buy anything or visit a country that has the death penalty for one year. Consumerism is my only power. This is not a spontaneous decision but one that was taken months ago if the executions went ahead.

Link to a map of capital punishments around the world in 2013.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/datablog/2014/mar/27/death-penalty-statistics-2013-by-country

The Pilliga

Kill area in The Pilliga

This morning I met Tony Pickard for a tour of the Pilliga Forest. He showed me coal seam gas wells and what he calls ‘kill areas’, where water has escaped and killed the vegetation. Most of the spills happened when Eastern Star Gas held the licence and Santos, the current licencee has covered the spill areas with woodchip but evidence of salt can still be seen. In an attempt to dilute the salts thick irrigation pipes lie on the ground but some believe this just spreads the ‘kill area’. Trees in the area continue to die and the cypress pine and bull oaks are not coming back but some iron barks and gums remain. Noxious weeds, such as galvanised burr flourish in some of these areas.

Alone on the Road

Bulga Bridge

Denise woke up with a very sore throat this morning so she was made to stay in bed. I decided to go anyway as we didn’t think she would be better for at least a week. I had set up meetings with people who I knew would not be as readily available then. I decided to see what was happening in the Pilliga and then make up my mind about going further north to Queensland.

Gift of the GAB Tour Starts

Denise and Kathy - their first selfie

We are two women in our sixties, Denise and Kathy. Tomorrow we set off on a road trip to rural areas in NSW and Queensland, which rely on water from the GAB.

Many people believe that this water, the ‘Gift of the GAB’, may be under threat from pollution caused by mining. While governments say we need coal and coal seam gas (CSG), communities say they don’t want it.