Long term gas well integrity due to ground movement causing cracked concrete allowing concrete cancer is a major concern.
This has the potential to contaminate groundwater decades into the future.
The economics of natural gas as a transition fuel between coal and renewables has also been disproven. Wind or Solar with storage is now cheaper than gas for electricity generation.
If the world is to remain within 1.5 degree warming as agreed at the Paris climate summit, it has been stated that no new fossil fuel projects should proceed.
The NSW governments management of compliance of resource projects within this region has been less than satisfactory and I do not believe this standard will improve with the approval of the Santos project.
The Maules Creek Coal Project EIS grossly underestimated the noise, dust and light pollution that now exists within the Maules Creek valley and the local residents are now suffering as a consequence.
I do not believe that the NSW government nor Santos are capable of best management practices that estimate and mitigate the numerous potential negative consequences of this project and therefore I strongly object to it's approval.

please do not allow or approve fracking in the piliga scrub or anywhere in nsw

Get it out of the Pilliga - it affects not just this forest the size of Sydney but surrounding farmland, water supplies and the dark sky necessary to our national observatory Siding Spring.

'The Pilliga' is a precious natural resource, not only for it's flora and fauna, but for the future of our environment and people.
Any exploration is a backward step.
Please keep it intact.
Jan Kay

I object to the development of coal seam Gas fields. This production is of short term gain for long term pain. Not unlike asbestos mining, the extraction of water from this depth can only be monitored and results proven many years after the process has been found to be advisable or not. Results of independent chemical sampling in atmosphere and water tanks has proven there is increased influence of lead and other heavy metals in the Dalby / Tara area which are unacceptable where we are producing food and fibre for the world. Science can be used as guidance only as it is only able to produce results of the questions asked and all theory's are flawed. Our water is our life and any change will mean the end of agriculture as we know it,

The Narrabri Gas Project should not proceed due to the likely irreversible damage to the Artesian water that so much of our country relies on. Any damage to the aquifers or contamination of the water will result in the closing up of grazing country in the western division which relies on this water for stock and domestic survival. Australia has an irregular rainfall pattern and bores are a reliable way of maintaining constancy of supply.

It is of great concern that the Narrabri Gas Project Environmental Impact Statement makes no reference to the risk of damage to the artesian water supply. The Groundwater and geology (Chapter 11); Hydrology and Geomorphology (Chapter 13) and Cumulative Impacts (Chapter 29) chapters discuss the extraction and groundwater activities, the risk of contamination of water and runoff events, yet fail to consider at all the risk that the method of gas exploration and extraction poses to the long term security of the artesian water. In Australia, with relation to alternate water sources, there is no Plan B - rainfall events are not enough to maintain the health and sustainability of environmental and food production requirements.

I strongly object on environmental and water impact grounds to the approval of this project. The risks are far greater than the economic returns estimated.

I am opposed to the proposed gas field on a number of counts. One being the harm that will be caused to the great artesian basin from the extraction of the gas, the amount of contaminants that would leak and affect surrounding land and waterways. The second reason is that we dont need to extract gas but instead should be already transitioning to a clean energy future without the use of fossil fuels, that are so destructive to the earths atmosphere. Please dont subject humanity to a horrible 'mad max' style future.

The drilling of 850 wells will cause vast damage to the wilderness of the Pilliga, from the access road and the gas pipelines and other associated infrastructure.
The waste generated from the CSG operation will be huge and toxic. It is not clear where it will be treated or how it will be disposed of.
The fugitive emissions from CSG are huge, far greater than conventional gas drilling, or even fracking. This is not a sensible way to obtain gas.
Extracting vast quantities of groundwater will greatly impact upon groundwater-fed ecosystems and other less intensive groundwater users.
Yours sincerely,
James Barrett

The EIS for the Narrabri Gas Project is misleading due to its superficial consideration of bushfire risk. Chapter 25 of the EIS (Hazard and Risk) considers bushfire but suffers two major flaws: i) it does not recognise the increased likelihood of bushfire igniting as a result of the operations and ii) it does not consider the impact of the Asset Protection Zones and fuel reduced zones.
Likelihood of Ignition
The new 430 km road network and the people travelling along them will bring increased risk of bushfire ignition through various means including tail pipe sparks, discarded cigarettes and deliberate ignition (arson). The relationship between roads and bushfire ignition is well recognised both in Australia (Penman et al 2013) and everywhere else where spatial patterns of ignition have been studied (Romano-Calcarreda et al 2008; Narayanaraj and Wimberley 2012). 41% of bushfire ignitions in NSW are deliberately lit (Collins et al 2016) and even measures taken by the proponents to reduce accidental ignition will not address this issue. Predicting changes to bushfire patterns is a difficult and imprecise task, but given the huge increase in the road network, it is conservative to assume that both the number of bushfires and the area burnt is likely to double in the project area as a result of the proposal. It could be far worse than that.
Despite this obvious increase in risk, and with no argument presented as to why, the EIS states "the likelihood of bushfire ignition from a project related activity was remote" (Chapter 25, P1). This is completely misleading.

Fuel reduced areas
The EIS states (Chapter 25, P8) that they will develop a Bushfire Management Plan which will include "asset production zones and fuel reduced zones" (notice spelling mistake which should read "asset protection zones"). Asset protection zones, as recommended by the Rural Fire Service are usually 50 m from the edge of an asset (in this case infrastructure and roads) where shrubs and most low lying fuels are removed. Given that the road network will be 430 km long, this means destroying plants in 2100 ha of forest. I presume fuel reduced areas refers to a Strategic Fire Advantage Zone, which by RFS guidelines is usually 500 m deep and involves regular prescribed burning treatments but not the mechanical removal of any plants. Also given the length of the road network, this equates to 43,000 ha or 45% of the project area being treated on a prescribed burning rotation that is probably too frequent to sustain many of the native plants that live there. This includes the main tree species in the Pilliga that show mortality rates of ~20% for the larger trees in response to a single prescribed burn (Parnaby et al 2010).
Clearly the impact of fuel treatments to reduce the likelihood of bushfire could be huge, and the EIS glosses over this issue in one bland sentence that does not even recognise the problem. This is totally inadequate.

References
Collins, KM, Price, OF, Penman, TD (2016) Spatial and temporal patterns of fire ignitions in southeastern Australia. International Journal of Wildland Fire 24, 1098-1108.
Narayanaraj, G, Wimberly, MC (2012) Influences of forest roads on the spatial patterns of human- and lightning-caused wildfire ignitions. Applied Geography 32, 878-888.
Parnaby, H, Lunney, D, Shannon, I, Fleming, M (2010) Collapse rates of hollow-bearing trees following low intensity prescription burns in the Pilliga forests, New South Wales. Pacific Conservation Biology 16, 209-220.
Penman, TD, Price, OF, Bradstock, R (2013) Modelling the determinants of ignition in the Sydney Basin, Australia: implications for future management. International Journal of Wildland Fire 22, 469-478.
Romero-Calcerrada, R, Novillo, CJ, Millington, JDA, Gomez-Jimenez, I (2008) GIS analysis of spatial patterns of human-caused wildfire ignition risk in the SW of Madrid (Central Spain). Landscape Ecology 23, 341-354.

Overall, the environmental risks associated with this project seem to outweigh the potential economic benefits.

- the impact on ground water
- the impact on rivers that feed the Murray Darling Basin
- fragmentation of the Pilliga Forest as a result of the sheer number of wells being proposed (and its impact on wildlife corridors).

Thanks you
Sam.