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.