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.

He doesn’t believe farming and gas extraction can coexist although mining companies believe they can. He has asked their employees if they know anything about agriculture and they have said no. He argues that if they don’t know anything about agriculture, how can they know that mining and agriculture can coexist.

He says that everything that has happened in America and was predicted to happen in Australia has happened. Rivers are bubbling, tap water can be lit, groundwater levels are dropping and bores have dried up, they have gas or coal particles coming out or are gassing up which is like having an airlock in your pump.

I have recorded an interview with Joe and will transcribe it later so other people can learn from this very practical, wise man.

The evidence of CSG mining can be seen on the road between Roma and Miles but the big infrastructure is on back roads including the road to Joe’s property. The roads, which were probably country lanes are mostly bitumen now except the road outside Joe’s house, which is gravel. Part of the contract states that the company has to dampen down the road to prevent dust. The company does this regularly now as Joe blocked the road with his cattle truck for a few hours one day when water trucks had neglected to come.

Even in this area where production of CSG has been happening for ten years, the companies still do not have a solution for the problem of waste water. No longer allowed to build evaporation ponds they now build massive ‘transfer ponds’ to store the left over salts and chemicals that the reverse osmosis plants take out of the water. These plastic lined ‘transfer ponds’ have spillways, which according to the companies allow only the surface flood water to escape. Despite the name, their contents may not be transferred – currently the only place for this high concentrate of salt and chemicals is to go is to be injected back into the ground, a costly exercise and is this safe?

On my way to Joe’s I called into the Miles Historical Village Museum and Information Centre. This is worth a look if you are travelling through Miles. Old houses and shops have been moved from around the district to form an old town. Every day articles and models dressed in period costumes add to the displays. Everything has been restored, maintained and managed by a team of volunteers with some help from the local council. It’s a credit to this community.