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.

Joe’s property has four petroleum leases (PLs), belonging to Origin Energy (in a joint venture with ConocoPhillips and Sinopec in Australia Pacific LNG), Arrow Energy (a 50/50 joint venture company between Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina, and two PLs owned by QGC (Queensland Gas Company acquired by BG Group now under offer from Shell). The leases allow these huge multinational companies to produce, transport, and process petroleum and gas.

‘They have tried every way they can to get onto this place,’ said Joe. ‘The first letter from QGC in 2010 said they wanted to put a pipeline out the front of the house, across the drive and across the creek. It said, “We’ve done a detailed study of your property and we have identified it as suitable for our infrastructure………we will negotiate with you in good faith to acquire the land but if we can’t come to an agreement we will get the Coordinator General to acquire the land for us.” Now that’s a threat, straightaway. A month later I got one from Origin, in a different format but saying the same thing. They both threatened me with the Coordinator General but it didn’t worry me, they were not coming onto my place.’

QGC wanted to put their 42 inch gas pipeline to Gladstone through Joe’s property. ‘There is nowhere on this place that stock can get bogged,’ said Joe, ‘but once you dig a trench and put this sandy loam soil through a machine to get rid of the debris, it will never compact.’

This is true, as I found out a few days later when I tried to drive over a pipeline and the car just sank into the mud!

‘A guy from QGC came to see us with a map and a signed caveat with nothing written on it,’ said Joe. ‘He told me he had never seen or delivered a caveat before. He said I should take it to my solicitor and QGC would pay me up to $3,000 in legal expenses but if I didn’t sign it they wouldn’t pay me. The map showed that QGC wanted to put the pipeline under a dam and under the Columboola Creek. That meant I couldn’t clean out that dam or make it bigger so I said, “Get to hell out of here, you are not going anywhere near there.”

A week later he was back to show Joe another map where the pipeline ran through some trees. Joe told him he couldn’t cut the trees down as he wanted to keep them for when the emissions trading scheme was introduced. Joe was told that the company would buy him credits. “I don’t want your credits or your pipeline,” said Joe. “The only way you are going to get through here is to drill below sixteen feet because I have put all my fence strainer posts eight feet in the ground.” The guy from QGC complained that it would cost too much. “That’s your problem not mine,” said Joe.

If Joe didn’t agree and sign up, the QGC representative threatened to bring up the Coordinator General and their solicitors at $10,000 a day. He said, then they would put the pipeline where they liked. “You go and get him,” said Joe. “I’ll be here waiting for him and I won’t need a solicitor.”

Instead of putting the pipeline straight through Joe’s property, QGC had to put the pipeline outside Joe’s boundary on a neighbour’s property, around a corner that’s now called Joe’s Bend.’

Joe and his son, Ben, put a new strainer post in their boundary fence at the bend. It was an eighty pound railway line, cemented eight feet in the ground, with six feet sticking out. When the pipeline was being installed the post was bent and the cement surrounding it was broken up. Joe could see a mark on top where a bucket had bent it. Joe accused the contractors of damaging his post but QGC denied doing it and refused to fix it. Joe contacted the police and accused QGC of wilful damage to property. He received a letter from QGC saying that as a gesture of good will they would offer $1,500 compensation. So they paid up and Joe got his neighbours to straighten the post, dig out the cement and put in another five bags. Joe reckons it’s the most expensive strainer post in Australia!