The NorthWest Gas Pipeline – a Trojan Horse for Coal Seam Gas in NSW
While the eyes of the nation have been on the scandalous Adani Carmichael coal mine in Queensland, here in NSW there is an immediate and serious threat of new coal and gas projects and mine expansions.
The community awaits the release of Santos’ Response to Submissions to the Narrabri Gas Project, when the South Australian based company rebuts or comments on the 22,000 plus Objections to 850 CSG gas wells. This could happen any time, even in the lead up to Christmas.
Desperate to fast track the Narrabri Gas Project, Santos is now engaged with APA Pipeline Group to survey a pipe easement from the Pilliga Forest, where the Narrabri Gas Project will be based. They have met with entrenched opposition in Coonamble, where APA entered numerous farm properties and were surrounded by community members demanding to see their Approval to Survey, and an alleged court order which the company claimed would exempt them from trespass laws.
Road building is also underway, with Roads and Maritime Services undertaking extensive road widening (and thus Pilliga Forest destruction) to make access roads and turning lanes off the Newell Highway – all for the benefit of the Santos CSG project.
Developments are being reported by the Twitter site NW Gas Pipeline Watch @NWGasPipeline
The take home message from the APA Pipeline easement surveys is that the NSW Government, despite Premier Berejiklian’s protestations, is covertly fast-tracking the highly unpopular CSG project in the Pilliga Forest.
Whitehaven Coal’s Narrabri underground mine
Whitehaven Coal is most well known for the Maules Creek coal mine and the Leard Forest Blockade, but the Narrabri Undergound mine is now under the spotlight due to its expansion into the Pilliga East Forest. According to an announcement of its CEO Paul Flynn at the Whitehaven Coal 2017 AGM, this mine will expand by 8km in two directions. The above ground impacts include large numbers of bulldozed patches of Pilliga Forest, averaging 50 metres square, and drill sites in varying states of neglect. At this rate many hundreds of hectares look to be irreparably damaged.
The Leard Forest Research Node, based in Narrabri, has published an expose of unlined polluted in-ground sumps scattered in and around the Forest. Take a drive in the Pilliga East and see what Whitehaven Coal is doing: LFRN FB page
This coal slurry was collected from one of the contaminated ponds, and awaits laboratory analysis. The Leard Forest Research Node has been doing a great job of monitoring pollution and attempting to bring to account the mines, in the absence of fair and balanced regulation by the absent authorities. Despite Narrabri Shire being a coal and gas hotspot, the only government officials in the region to monitor pollution are a team of two who specialise in coal seam gas and declined to take an interest in the pollution caused by Whitehaven Coal.
If you would like to contribute to the vital Citizen Science work being conducted by the Leard Forest Research Node, please email the Wando Conservation and Cultural centre at wandoccc@gmail.com to make your donation, however small, and receive banking details.”
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