Our environment and water table are more important than coal.

Environmental justice must prevail into the future. Please protect our land. The government of the people has a responsibility to act in the interests of future generations not for economic gain. The environment is more important than economic gain. Corporate feudalism needs to be abolished.

Please do not allow this coal seam gas field project to proceed!!!

Leave it alone!!!

This is terrible! Why do we need to destroy our beautiful country

The risk from CSG is far to great for water, farmland, health and future generations. We're at a time when we should be transitioning to cleaner smarter and safer alternatives to put it simply. The majority are against this project.

Please do not allow Santos to destroy our bushland, there are some things money can not buy.. and for oil!!! Are you crazy!!!!

Stop throwing our environmental landmarks away for short term gains and profits. Australia could be such an innovator and leader in sustainable energies and instead here we are trying to get that last little bit of money out of our environment that is already struggling.

Let's be better shall we?

More facts to back up why we shouldn't go ahead with this project

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. The area of the Great Artesian Basin with the highest recharge rates is almost entirely contained within the Pilliga East forest. In a worst-case scenario, the water removed for CSG extraction could reduce water pressure in the recharge areas--potentially stopping the free flow of waters to the surface at springs and bores across the whole Great Artesian Basin.¹

Creeks in the Pilliga run into the Namoi River--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.

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 cannot be trusted to manage the project safely
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 barium². In addition, there have been over 20 reported spills and leaks of toxic CSG water from storage ponds, pipes and well heads. Santos cannot be trusted.

5. The Pilliga is a haven for threatened wildlife
The Pilliga is one of 15 nationally listed `biodiversity hotspots' 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 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, but can cause eye, nose and airway irritation, headache, nausea, dizziness and loss of coordination⁴. These 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.

Protect Pilliga Forest do not proceed with Narrabri Gas Project and help end CSG in NSW once and for all. Any other decision is madness. STOP SANTOS CSG project and go with RENEWABLE ENERGY for us all. Save Planet Earth ... please!

In 1959 in a South Australian primary school room, I learned about the Great Artesian Basin. Not just the ARTESIAN Basin, but the GREAT Artesian basin. It was hailed as the wellspring of the nation and that claim was in no way hyperbolic - it was indisputable fact, both then and now.

Unfurled on a roller-blind map of the driest continent on Earth, the Great Artesian Basin loomed large. Our young eyes traced the spiderweb of creeks, rivers that drained in and out of it - evocative names like the Diamantina, the Channel Country, the MIGHTY Murray-Darling swelled our little hearts with pride. Love of country was reinforced daily at assembly on asphalt quadrangles, where we saluted the flag and sang, like a sacred mantra, Dorothea MacKellar's famous poem, "My Country". To this day, I still love a sunburnt country and every drop of its precious groundwater, the delicate web of its interconnected river and reliant eco-systems and the mighty GREAT Artesian Basin, which has lost none of its significance and importance to the sustainability and water security of the country.

To even entertain the notion of putting the Great Artesian Basin at risk is, in my opinion, no less than reckless negligence. To favourably accept an Environmental Impact Assessment from a company whose environmental record of toxic spillage and leaks is blatant and easily dismissed by paying a paltry fine here and there, is a betrayal of our country, its people and its wildlife.

To pretend that this potential pillage of the Pilliga forest by Santos is acceptable, in the name of short-term profits, is a travesty and, in my (and many others') opinion, tantamount to environmental vandalism. Any approval would ratify the worst possible consequences, which will affect not only a precious remnant of Australian bushland, but also threatens the security of Australia's precious water supply. This project has no benefit to the long-term, future well-being of Australia and must not be approved. We must remember that any damage to the structure of Great Artesian Basin is IRREVERSIBLE.

The protection of our rivers is paramount. You say so yourself! The Australian Government website says, and I quote, "it is recognised that any water resource management has to prioritise the sustainability of the river environment - the river of life" (http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/austn-river-catchments_ accessed 24/02/17). If the Narrabri Gas project is approved, then the words of this government will be exposed as no more than empty, hypocritical rhetoric and the exhortation of the "river of life" just another hollow, cynical catchphrase.

I believed in that pull-down map in 1959, I believed in Dorothea Mackellar's heart-felt poem. My belief is being eroded by cynicism, and I truly wish it wasn't; but, when political rhetoric proves, again and again to be little more than weasel words lacking in any semblance of integrity, I despair.

Perhaps decency will prevail. I won't even elaborate on climate change and the "bigger picture" in a submission to government when current policies seem to lack foresight, imagination, courage, intelligence and just plain common sense. There is a sense that these qualities are being obfuscated by deference to the influence of companies whose predominant interests lie in international markets and this situation is not conducive to the protection of our country's fragile eco-system and natural resources.

To add weight to this argument, surveys reveal that 96% of the community in the regions surrounding the Pilliga oppose the Narrabri Gas Project. One would hope that government would respect, if not the country itself then, at least, the very people whom they purport to represent. There is no social licence for this project.

For the sake of the Great Artesian Basin and our sustainable future, I submit my objection to the Narrabri Gas Project. Please consider it carefully and, dear reader, draw upon your personal integrity to support and respect our country, protect its vulnerable, integrated water systems and (as the Australian Government itself advises) "prioritise [their] sustainability".

Yours sincerely
C. Jarvis Sanderson
Uralla NSW