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!

Rob has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) from Macquarie University and is a Certified Professional Soil Scientist. He is currently Principal Soil Scientist with SoilFutures Consulting Pty Ltd. He has training in hydrology, soils and all sorts of land surface processes. He is currently doing a PhD on the change that occurs in fertile soil where cool, wet forests have been cleared and grazed for 150 plus years, and improvements that occur in more arid soils with better pasture selection and grazing management.

Rob was employed as a soil surveyor and salinity researcher for the NSW Government’s Soil Conservation Service for fourteen years before forming his own consultancy business, SoilFutures Consulting Pty Ltd. He has published books and maps mainly about the Liverpool Plains Region where he has lived and worked on natural resource issues for 26 years.

As a Soil Con employee he occasionally advised on a rehabilitation project for the Black Jack Open Cut mine near Gunnedah. As part of the mining, the whole soil profile was removed, and put back in the correct layering post mining (that is to say three metres of high quality soil).  The steep rocky area that the mine had destroyed was reconstructed and the former gentle foot slopes with fertile heavy soil have been restored. Today this land is once again productive farming country.

‘This land was rehabilitated, the way it should be, the way many mines were at that time,’ said Rob. ‘Today, instead of putting the landscape and soil profile back as it was before mining began, many coal mines  replace an undulating landscape with steep mountains of waste rock and often put only ten centimetres of soil on top. Something has gone wrong. The commitment to restoring the landscape and the full productivity of the land has been lost.’

‘I look at the way things can be and I believe that if we still need coal there is no excuse for not going underground these days, or, if open cut is necessary then the landscape should be at least as good if not better after mining than it was before mining’

Rob has worked for the government, community, farming, education and mining sectors but, as an independent scientific consultant, is not beholden to clients’ views or aims. Rob believes in sticking to scientific principles and applying the same ethics to everyone. Independent scientists, not employed by the government or mining industry, are rare.

‘Many people in the north west of NSW know me as the go to for natural resource type studies, particularly those which involve soil and landscape productivity’ said Rob. ‘The Liverpool Plain’s community groups against BHP’s Caroona mine, employed me as an independent expert witness to present scientific data in court. This public exposure resulted in people like Penny Blatchford contacting me.’

Penny is a cotton and grain farmer from Gurley, south of Moree. In 2010, she was approached by coal seam gas exploration company Planet Gas/Leichhardt Resources, the holders of Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 470. She asked Rob to look at her farm’s water and soil resources, tell her how they could be impacted, and if her property qualified as biophysical strategic agricultural land (BSAL) or not.

Penny proceeded to lead a vigorous campaign against coal seam gas in her community. The licences were cancelled in October 2014 under the Petroleum (Onshore) Act 1991 on the basis that Leichhardt Resources had contravened or failed to fulfil specified conditions of the licences.