Narrabri Gas

These Corporations are ripping the gas from the ground and damage our ground water and poison the environment. The gas is sold with little financial benefit to Australians and these Corporations pay little if any tax on the profits they extract from Australia.

I am opposed to oil fracking in the Pillaga for the same reasons as elsewhere: the fracking process pumps toxic chemicals into the land and the release of the oil or gas disturbs the water table.

Consequently it is completely contrary to the integrity of the environment to permit such fracking.

In 2007 we bought our 700 acre full bush property at the southern end of the Pilliga Forest to live in a peaceful rural/bush setting to be close to nature and to caretake a special piece of Australia. We have lived here since 2011, making as little impact as we can on the land and when we die we will donate the property to ensure the sanctuary that it is remains for future generations.

We never envisioned that the Pilliga forest and area would ever be affected by a short term industry that is producing nothing for future generations. In all likelihood, should CSG mining go forward, it will be an environmental disaster that will definitely affect greenhouse gas emissions (see recent reports on Methane leakage), destroy local habitats around the well heads and roads, as well as the unacceptable possibility of impact on the Great Artisan Basin water supplies.

The industry has shown itself to be duplicitous and profit-seeking, uninterested in anything but propping up their faltering business model in an world market that no longer wants what they are producing.

There is no positive outcome for the area, it's people or the whole of Australia should this project go forward and as such we object to it.

We cannot afford to have this happen. This will destroy the Pilliga region & the artesian basin, forever, not just existing water.

We lived in the Piligar for 20 years and I can't believe the government is allowing Santos to drill any coal seam gas wells let alone 850 shame on you.
Think about the generations to come.
We care about the water and the land why don't you ? is it all about money?

I find that any consultation or consideration for this industry is an act of terrorism against all life and life giving systems across Australia and any other nation.

It toxify's water, land, all ecosystems which give us all life and any threat to life is war on humanity etc.

We have been ignored, abused, over ridden, dictated to and huge corruption across industries, the mining and gas industries need a huge accountability charges and prison terms for these acts of high treason.

Citizen's are asking government's to lead, grow a humanity brain and realise they to are contributing to those crimes because of inaction to protect life and life giving systems.

Will Local councils, Local MP's, State and Federal governments and other authority agencies start to act in this war upon us all and stop this political corporatism attack on our nation and it's citizen's.

The top half of our nation feeds the rest of our nation so your decisions affect the whole country NOT just your state and you are accountable to the whole country for any bad decisions you enter into bringing harm to us all.

Please don't go ahead with the Santos CSG proposal.

The Locals & Farmers of the area don't want it. For good reason.

It will ruin the water and the landscape,with increased risk of toxic spills & fire.

Coal seam gas mining has been proven to be devastating to the environment, polluting waterways, producing toxic waste and seriously degrading natural habitats of native wildlife. This project can only benefit the few while harming the many and should be stopped.
Please think past the public coffers and the shareholders pockets and prioritise the Australian environment, wildlife and people instead. This is an opportunity to avoid a grim future for the Piliga.

It's just not safe. Clean, safe drinking water should be a given in Australia. Muck around with CSG/ fracking, and it has made it unsafe. Simple. It's dangerous. Do not do this. Waterbodies on fire?! Holy Dooley... you don't need to be an Einstein to know this is not a good idea. I object!!

it is about time our government organisations gave the same level of support to the agriculture industry, natural environment and human communities of our country. The proportion of our land being used for fossil fuels and in particular coal seam gas - which does not remain within any kind of boundary and is one of the greatest threats to the health and wellbeing of everything living and the very land itself is totally out of balance. It is imperative for the state of our sovereignty and economy that we have sufficient and balanced diversity within all our industry. Coal Seam Gas is destroying that needs to stop. The most responsible and future orientated decision is to permantly ban the industry and certainly keep it out of the Pillaga Forest and our crucial water supply in the Great artisan Basin. Even without all the research and evidence clearly demonstrating it's destructiveness and poor economic return it is plain common sense to ban it.

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

The Great Artesian Basin with the highest recharge rates is almost entirely contained within the Pilliga East forest. Has any thought gone into, the water being removed for CSG extraction could reduce water pressure in the recharge areasÂ--potentially stopping the free flow of waters to the surface at springs and bores across the whole Great Artesian Basin.¹ Living in a rural area myself there are times when we have had to rely on bore water, if that dries up there is no water for the household.

Creeks in the Pilliga run into the Namoi RiverÂ--a part of the Murray Darling Basin. This system is vulnerable to contamination from drilling fluid spills and the salty treated water produced from the proposed 850 wells. Australia is facing an environmental problem that could, and very likely will, bring our economy to its knees, if we continue to ignore it the way we have in the past. We have known about it since 1924, but only since the 1970s have we seriously tried to understand it and combat it. Now it's accelerating, The projections on the Murray are quite scary. Over the next 20 to 30 years, at current levels, salinity will increase to the stage where it will be outside World Health Organisation recommended drinking levels

2. 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.

3. The Pilliga is a haven for threatened wildlife
it is one of 15 nationally listed Â`biodiversity hotspotsÂ' and is vital to the survival of threatened species like the Koala, Spotted-tailed Quoll, Black-striped Wallaby, Eastern Pygmy-possum, Pilliga Mouse and South-eastern Long-eared Bat. The forest is home to over 200 bird species and is internationally recognised as an Important Bird Area². The Santos gasfield would fragment 95,000 hectares of the Pilliga with well pads, roads, and water and gas pipelinesÂ--damaging vital habitat and threatening the survival of endangered species.

4. The annual number of natural disasters appears to be increasing around the world. These include, for example, not only weather- and water-related disasters, but also geological disasters, such as earthquakes, and biological disasters, such as pandemics. Data from the past 50 years show that 41 percent of all global disasters are related to extreme weather or water events.

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.

I am a citizen of the United States and currently live in Vietnam. I had traveled through Australia for three months on my way here. I found a deep love for the country and many of the towns and cities that were moving forward for a brighter future. I feel this will only be a set back. Not just for Australia, but for humankind on this earth. Climate change is happening right before out eyes, and this will only add to it. We must see the future of generations to come more important than the money you may accumulate in this life. Not only is the health of humans and wildlife important, but the health of this planet. Please take the time to reconsider what this will do. We need countries like you to stand up for what is right in this world today. America and Australia need to show other countries that there are other answers. I hope you will reconsider.

To whom it may concern,

I urge you as a responsible member of our government not to approve this EIS, it is a decision which could negatively affect many generations of people and destroy one of the last largest inland woodlands in Australia, all for a bit of short term profit while the rest of the world moves on to renewable energy production.

Santos and the company known as Eastern Star Gas (of which Santos was a major shareholder) have a history of incidents involving spills of toxic water and have not been forthcoming in reporting these incidents until members of the public have brought them to light. Also, although to my knowledge, no formal proof has ever been brought to light, employees of Namoi waste have confided to members of the community that toxic water has been dumped in the past. This seems to be confirmed when puddles are found on surrounding roads near Bibblewindi even when it has not rained, there is often a strange white crust on the ground on the edges of these puddles.

The CSG industry as a whole is under investigation at present for being responsible for major fugitive methane emissions, both from their infrastructure, and from the surrounding environment of the wells after production has begun. It is estimated that this may put the CSG industry in a position of being a greater contributor to global warming than the Coal Industry once developed.

Suitable baseline data was not well enough documented before production begun, and in the Pilliga, it is my understanding that the water monitoring bores have been placed in one of the few areas that have actually been fracked here and that this data is supposed to provide a baseline reading. If this is truly the case then not only is it too late, but it is deceptive.

On the ground there is evidence obtained from local bores that contamination of the aquifers has already occurred.

New species of Stygofauna have been found in underground streams of the pilliga which have been dismissed as being of `low significance'.

As to well integrity, there are microbes which live in the coal seams, Sulphate Reducing Bacteria exist in these waters along with the Methogenic Bacteria. Sulphate reducing bacteria thrive in the conditions created when metal and steel are introduced to this environment. the interaction of steel and water create a layer of molecular hydrogen on the metal surface, SRB's then oxidise the hydrogen while creating hydrogen sulphide, this contributes to corrosion of the well infrastructure. The hydrogen Sulphide also plays a role in the corrosion of concrete. It is my understanding that steel and concrete are major components of a well, and that the SRB's cannot be eliminated without eliminating the methogenic bacteria which are needed for the well to be productive. It seems evident that the corrosion cannot be controlled in this environment when much of the surface infrastructure appears rusty, therefore how can there be any guarantee that these wells will not deteriorate and cause further contamination.

Potato and Peanut Grower Sarah Csieolka lives 6km from the Narrabri Gas Project, when Sarah and her husband sought an insurance policy to cover risks associated with Coal Seam Gas industry they were told that there was no policy which could cover that. The insurer was not aware of any insurance brokers who would cover it. Multiple insurers were contacted including three major insurance providers, but none could identify a policy which would cover it, Anthony Saunders, an insurance specialist stated that there is "no insurer that will cover an event that has a likely hood of certainty." Peter Mitchley claims that Santos has an insurance policy which will cover Santos in the event of contamination. However, for a farmer to be compensated for losses they would need to take legal action against Santos, as Sarah stated "the burden of proof would ultimately rest with us and we'd have to finance a case against them, which would bankrupt any farmer."

During Sarah's submission at the Bender Enquiry in Narrabri, Senator Joe Ludwig noted that even if there is was a regime of testing in place that "if it (the food) was from a CSG place, distributors may baulk at taking that product even if it has been tested as being without contaminant, due to the perception that at any time there could be a problem, therefore best to stay away from that product in the market place" a point which Sarah confirmed has been bought up with the people they supply, and that stock and cattle agents in Queensland are already discriminating against stock coming from CSG production areas.

The people of North West NSW rely on ground water to survive and farm in this environment, If we are to learn from history, and to look at Santos history in the area and abroad, then the risk is too great to be worthwhile. Without clean groundwater there will be no way of supporting a population in the North West, and valuable farmland will be unfarmable.

The line that always gets pedalled by CSG companies is that their industry will provide a cleaner `stepping stone' while renewable energy has yet to become viable. More and more it seems like the CSG industry is anything but clean, and that the main thing holding back the renewable industry is our elected `leaders'. Santos would face much less opposition if they simply invested in renewable energy, but then they are an oil exploration company after all, not, as they may claim, a clean energy company.

For the sake of many future generation of the North West, and the future of the Pilliga Bushland I implore you not to approve this EIS

Duncan Wilson

I object to any CSG proposals in Australia

I would like to add my voice to the thousands who are against coal seam gas. Our planet can't withstand the assault we as humans have placed on it. I think we should be investing this sort of money (billions) into renewable energy sources,not killing our beautiful planey

I am against csg in the Pilliga region.

I see a much brighter future for this country when Politician's accept the way forward it in renewables. The way backward is sticking to dirty and dangerous coal.

Dear Sir,

Coal Seam Gas extraction carries substantial risks and minimal benefits for the community.

Drilling in the Pilliga area puts at risk the great artesian basin - an essential water supply for a large area of Australia and the farming industry. Once damaged, it cannot be undone. While mining companies claim that they can drill safely, there is a distinct lack of evidence for this claim and many known examples where water supplies and aquifers have been contaminated. Coal Seam gas extraction also puts at risk ground water supplies that are relied on for drinking water.

The potential financial benefits of CSG are short term and predominantly benefit the drilling companies and not the community. The risks are substantial and the potential damage unremediable.

This CSG proposed is not in the best interests of the community and is not worth the risk.

Yours sincerely

Dr Kevin Sweeney

The Narrabri Gas Project involves the progressive development of a coal seam gas field comprising up to 850 gas wells on up to 425 well pads over 20 years, and the construction and operation of gas processing and water treatment facilities.

Coal seam gas mining in the Pilliga is not acceptable at any cost or at any time.
It is detrimental to the future safety and security of all Australians.
This project in the Pilliga cannot be given the green light.

NO MORE COAL SEAM GAS.
STOP THIS NOW.

I thank you on behalf of all who will be here after our lifetimes are complete.

Kindly.
Peter Barber

Santos coal seam gas mining is way too much of a hazard, especially in relation to how little need Australia has for more gas exploitation.
The government should also stop lying about the cause of SA's breakdown, which was simply a lack of pipelining, as the Prime Ministart showed to be quite informed of while choosing his words to mislead people to think the reason was clean energy.
The government should listen to scientific evidence and stop childishly supporting big mining just because it is expected of a 'liberal' party.
Follow well considered advice. That goes for penalty rates, that goes for climate change.