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.’

The problems are presumed to come from air born pollution as these people live within a couple of kilometres of CSG infrastructure. Symptoms are worse with prevailing wind or weather conditions. If it is an overcast day, the vented gas cannot get away through the cloud cover. Then if it rains it brings it down to ground level.

A lot of big infrastructure is located close to the north western side of Tara at Origin Energy’s Ironbark CSG Project and QGC’s Brentleigh Park and Kenya gas fields. ‘Within a 15 to 20 km radius people are affected,’ said Karen. ‘The most affected are the people who are there 24 hours, seven days a week, which of course includes small children too young to go to school. By the time they are old enough to go to school at Tara they are often sent home because they can’t concentrate because they have a headache or another nose bleed.’

‘A couple of years ago a black tar like substance fell out of the sky onto properties, vehicles and roofs,’ said Karen. ‘It washed into water tanks. The same people now get very fine, copper coloured droplets on their vehicles and you can’t scratch or wipe it off. It actually eats into windscreen glass. When Origin, the nearest facility, was contacted they didn’t go onto the property, just to the fence line. They said they couldn’t get enough samples and suggested the problem was lerps, an insect infestation which occurs on the underleaf of eucalyptus trees. A child in that household has had health issues and needs to get out.’

‘Queensland Health know about the problems in this area,’ said Karen. ‘They’ve seen the reports and not once have they sent a representative to one of those properties. That is bloody shameful. People have stopped ringing them as nothing happens.’

‘The Federal Government needs to be made aware of these health issues too. Continual visits to doctors and hospitals and sick people being medivaced to Brisbane by Careflight helicopter costs thousands of dollars, and it’s happening numerous times. There are wards in Brisbane that may as well be called CSG wards. One local person who had a massive asthma attack, which brought on a heart attack, ended up in a pulmonary cardiac ward in Brisbane. Of the five people in the ward, three were workers from CSG companies out here and they all had the same problem.’

Dr Geralyn McCarron, a Queensland GP has been urging the State Government to implement recommendations made in its own report, Coal seam gas in the Tara region: Summary risk assessment of health complaints and environmental monitoring data, written in 2013. This report recommends that an ambient air monitoring program be established to monitor overall CSG emissions and the exposure of local communities to those emissions. To date nothing has happened.

QGC and Santos have financed the construction of a satellite renal unit at Gladstone Hospital and an upgrade of the operating theatre. Origin Energy supports CareFlight's MediSim Trauma Care Workshop. This is a blatant conflict of interest. Gas companies should be paying taxes and royalties not bribes.

I have sent Queensland Health a series of questions but to date have had no response. I will persevere and post a response if I get one.

Generally, people speak about the physical health issues but the mental health issues are really big too. More on that soon.