Narrabri Gas

The Narrabri Gas Project should not proceed, the impacts and risks of the project both short and long term far outway any possible short term financial considerations.

1. The Narrabri Gas Project risks precious water sources, including the Great Australian Basin--Australia's largest groundwater aquifer. The Narrabri gasfield poses a real risk to our two most precious water resources: the Great Artesian Basin and the Murray-Darling Basin.

2. The Gamilaraay Traditional Custodians are opposed. There are hundreds of cultural sites as well as songlines and stories connecting the Gamilaraay to the forest and to the groundwater beneath. Gamilaraay people are deeply involved in the battle against CSG, and have told Santos they do not want their country sacrificed for a coal seam gas field.

3. Farmers and other local community reject the project. Extensive community surveys have shown an average of 96% opposition to CSG. This stretches across a massive 3.2 million hectares of country surrounding the Pilliga forest, including 99 communities. Hundreds of farmers have participated in protest actions unlike any previously seen in the region.

4. The Narrabri Gas Project has a long history of spills and leaks of toxic CSG water. Santos has already contaminated a freshwater aquifer in the Pilliga with uranium at levels 20 times higher than safe drinking water guidelines, as well as lead, aluminium, arsenic and barium. In addition, there have been over 20 reported spills and leaks of toxic CSG water from storage ponds, pipes and well heads

5. The Pilliga is a haven for threatened wildlife. The Santos gasfield would fragment 95,000 hectares of the Pilliga with well pads, roads, and water and gas pipelines--damaging vital habitat and threatening the survival of endangered species.

6. Coal seam gas fuels dangerous climate change. Methane is by far the major component of natural gas, and is a greenhouse gas 72 times more powerful than CO². CSG fields contribute to climate change through the leakage of methane during the production, transport, processing and use of coal seam gas.

7. Human health is compromised by coal seam gas. A range of hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds can be released into the air from coal seam gas operations, including flaring of gas wells. The effects of volatile organic compounds vary, a range of health impacts have been documented in human populations nearby to existing gasfields in Queensland, Sydney and in America.

8. The nation's premier optical astronomical observatory is at risk. The Siding Springs Observatory, situated in the Warrumbungles and adjacent to the Pilliga, is under threat from the Narrabri Gas Project due to light and dust pollution⁵. The area has been internationally recognised as a `dark sky park'⁶ and the 50m high gas flares proposed by Santos threaten the viability of the facility.

9. Thousands of tonnes of salt waste will result from the project. Santos has no solution for disposing of the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of salt that will be produced. Between 17,000 and 42,000 tonnes of salt waste would be produced each year. This industry would leave a toxic legacy in NSW.

10. Risk of fires would increase throughout the Pilliga's tinder-box conditions. Methane flare stacks up to 50m high would be running day and night, even on total fire ban days. The Pilliga is prone to severe bushfires. The project would increase ignition sources as well as extracting, transporting and storing a highly flammable gas right within this extremely fire-prone forest.

Australia must stop looking at what remains of our natural environment as simply resources to be developed or exploited for financial gain by corporations. The long term cost and impact of these actions is directly borne by the environment and at the expense of future generations. We are selling out and giving away our collective futures if we stand by and simply allow this to happen.

Hello
Please consider the community opposition, the tourist loss, the unintended consequences, and the fact that Santos doesn't need the cash...
AND THERE'S A GROWING AWARENESS THAT LONG TERM WE WILL BE JUDGED HARSHLY BY HISTORY FOR USES OLD ENERGY..
Please leave the beautiful places alone now.
Regards
Ben :)

When we need to be divesting ourselves of fossil fuels, when all the experts say that to reduce warming we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground, you are proposing to take more out. And you are proposing to destroy one of the world's most important and last remaining areas of relatively untouched wilderness in the process.
No. I will not support this. Neither will I support you as a government or as a political party any further if you proceed with it. In addition, I will make it my life's mission to have an enquiry opened into the relationship between the fossil fuel energy industry and elected government officials.

Please refrain from being driven by greed. Let it be very clear that that is the bottom line of this proprosed project.
The devastation on the environment, should this project go ahead, will be irreversible and wide spread.
Our land, wildlife and yes, even your fellow humankind will be adversely affected. And after this project, what next? What more will be knocked down, cleared, removed, destroyed to line the pockets of those who care not for anything except for more shiny, faster stuff.
Please do not be governed by greed. Do not allow the Narrabri Gas Project to go ahead.

Please, don't do this. We have damaged enough, my and your children and generations to come will never no what the world was like.
There must be other ways to tackle this, before it's too late.
On behalf of everyone and anyone

The proposal for over 800 CSG gas wells in the Pilliga Region, or indeed in any region of Australia at this time (perhaps any time) is most ill-thought out. And extremely ill-timed.

The country is still in the dark regarding how much damage to the environment methane gas does. Both in its use and due to leakage from the wells themselves. This and similar proposals need to be placed on the backburner.

I oppose this particular proposal and see no long term benefit for either the country or the Australian people as a whole.

This government must be mad. Allowing Coal Seam Gas exploration and drilling above Australia's largest aquifer? Look at the results of CSG drilling in the US. Local human and agricultural populations falling sick and dying from chemical exposure, not to mention the natural disaster that is waiting to happen when toxic water leaks into the aquifer and threatens native wildlife for generations to come. Why aren't we focusing on renewables instead of living in the past??
Truly disgusted.

I am a farmers wife with three sons, all see their future on the land with us. We have been fighting Santos for years, and throughout all that time we have asked the same questions. How could it be that our government would allow something so dangerously detramental to our Artesian water, our soil our communities out here at the Pilliga? And there has never been an answer. There are no answers. What has a happened in Queensland will happen here. America is suffering from the effects of CSG extraction. We cannot allow this to happen to us.

I demand that Santos not be permitted to drill wells in the Pilliga.
Not one coal seam gas well!
We can use solar and wind power. These will not ruin the planet and are NOT as expensive despite the total rubbish and lies that we are fed.
I cannot sit back and let greedy companies make billions of dollars out of gas which will destroy the land for future generations!
We must develop solar and wind power or else go back to 16th century when humans survived without killing the planet for their own greed. The indigenous people knew how to coexist with nature and this is what we must do.

To whom it concerns,
Coal seam gas mining has devastating effects on the ecological system where it is carried out and will destroying the Pilliga and it's underwater aquafers. CSG mining benefits the greedy and the short sighted. The Pilliga is a complex and fragile ecological system that is precious to the people of Australia. We do not want CSG mining performed in NSW or anywhere in Australia. It is time to mature and realise the value of our wilderness areas and what they already provide.
Yours Sincerely,
Maria Burke.

I object to Santos' Narrabri gas project for a number of reasons:
First, the community is against: community surveys have shown a whopping 96% of the community are opposed to the project. Farmers don't want it, villagers don't want it, the traditional owners don't want it. For schemes such as these that could affect the lives of the local community, it is important to have a majority of people agree to the project.

Additionally, the possibility of accidents (accidents do happen!) affecting two very precious water resources is too much to risk. The Pilliga is a part of the Murray-Darling river system. The system will be put at risk if there is spillage from the drilling or treated salty water. Note that Santos has no solution for the hundreds pf thousands of salt waste that would be produced.
The Artesian basin is equally an important water source, and the area of the greatest recharge rates is almost entirely contained within the Pilliga East forest. The potential change in water pressure from the use of the water within the basin could affect the whole great Artesian basin. We should in no way risk these two precious water sources, but rather protect them for the benefit of future generations of Australians.
It should be noted that The Narrabri Gas Project has a long history of spills and leaks of toxic CSG water Santos has already contaminated a freshwater aquifer in the Pilliga with uranium at levels 20 times higher than safe drinking water guidelines - Santos really cannot be trusted to manage the project safely
Finally, the project threatens both the local wildlife - the Pilliga is one of 15 nationally listed Â`biodiversity hotspotsÂ', and is significant to the survival of many threatened species. We need to do what we can to protect the natural world, and this lovely area is no exception.

Hello,
The Narrabri Gas Project has a long history of spills and leaks of toxic CSG water--Santos cannot be trusted to manage the project safely. This could be damaging to the environment including wildlife. I object to it going ahead, this must be stopped.
Regards,
David R.

It is time to save our environment and our water from a destructive industry such as the CSG industry.

The Pilliga forest is the largest intact woodland in eastern Australia, stretching across half a million hectares in north-western New South Wales. It is a unique ecological refuge, home to 25 nationally listed and 48 state-listed threatened species, such as the Pilliga Mouse, which rely on the Pilliga for survival.

The sandstone under the Pilliga is a vital recharge area for the Great Artesian Basin, and creeks that flow through the Pilliga provide clean water into the Murray Darling Basin. These water sources are the lifeblood of farming communities throughout the southeast and inland Australia.

Why do we want to poison our land and water which will be crucial for a healthy future for generations to come? We cannot afford to steal the well-being from future generations.

Santos plans to pursue coal seam gas wells in the Pilliga region is not a responsible plan, When pursuing energy resources there is a responsibility to protect the environment and the right of future generations to inherit a healthy environment that is as nafural and is indamaged by corporate greed and it's pursuit for profits. The main consideration when licensing these endeavours, must be to ensure the process is safe, will not harm the long term ecosystems or pollute the delicate systems of aquifers, natural forests, wildlife or inhibit the ability to pass on a planet to a generation that is in a poorer state than we ourselves inherited it. Coal seam gas, fracking and other capitalist endeavours of unconventional fisk laden methodology does not meet that most basic consideration.

Eric Rolls' Million wild acres - that I experienced as an undergraduate on an urgent call to search for a missing person. - should not be the plaything of resource companies, however politically tempting. It will have many people like myself who see in this peculiar wilderness something at heart of what Australia is to its city dwellers or country folk alike.

There must be some way to manage natural resources in the public interest which does not see them exploited in the course of a commercial lease, then remaining to the memories of increasingly old and embittered people who knew what they represented, and grieve that present younger people will not.

NRM is not making holes in the ground, on the basis of false or nearsighted economic arguments, where the state is a delusional last to energy kings with resources to silence any alternative argument, no matter how rational, sound, or forward looking.

We should embrace our forest resources, above their archaic rests, that are best left as part of intricate systems that stabilise our landscapes, our climates and our future on this continent.

Australia is sitting on a gold mine it its natural forests of cypress if only it knew, and cared. The insidiousness of the exploitation proposed in the Pilbara is of a piece with the capture of the Federation' planning and future vision by off shore commercial interests, with a clear limited positive economic impact on the local population.

Stephen Horn, BSc Hons, Grad Dip Stats, MPubPol (ANU).

Please protect precious water resources from contamination, prevent salination of the environment and fire risk. Keep the skies clear of pollution. Respect indigenous cultural heritage and country. Protect indigenous, endemic species of flora and fauna and biodiversity. Respect the opinions of locals and their health. Protect from untrustworthy companies who care only for profit. Respect the rights of future generations to a healthy environment. Look to low impact renewables for energy resources...such as the sun and the wind.

I believe that the Pilliga Forest needs to be conserved for the good of the environment and for the good of Australia now and in the future.

I call on the NSW Government to disallow Santos' application to coal seam gas wells in the Pilliga. This is a very destructive process to the landscape and to the ground water -and in case it had escaped your notice - many NSW communities and farmers depend on good quality ground water.
Additionally, NSW and Australia (and the world) should be investing in renewable energy sources not fossil fuels. We should be divesting in fossil fuels.
The only sense I can make of any Government's approval of schemes such as this is that someone in the NSW government is personally benefiting from this.
We would have more jobs, safer and healthier communities if we looked to renewable energy sources - if we invested in this technology we might even be able to sell our expertise or products overseas!

We have preserve areas like this or everything becomes more endangered then it is already

I call on the government and regulatory authorities to call a halt to barely regulated major push to fill the Pilliga Forest with CSG wells.

This is wanton destruction of good land and ecosystems for excess gas we do not need. We already have sufficient gas production to supply domestic needs were it not for the current legislation that allows the industry to monopolise our national resources. As a result we pay far more for gas than our customers overseas, and governments here are claiming there's a dangerous shortage. This is a falsehood.

The 'gold rush' of CSG extraction must end. It is theft from our nation, intergenerational theft from our children and grandchildren, pollutes the land and waterways, and pumps the dangerous Greenhouse gasses CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. The extraction companies will never pay the true costs of these externalities, but we and future generations will.

The approval for the Pilliga wells is for the benefit of the corporate sector for which politicians will receive donations and the rest of us will pay.

Do not allow this project to go ahead.