Wednesday, November 30

Senate inquiry Calls for Halt to Coal-Seam Gas Projects in Murray-Darling Basin

THE federal government should impose a moratorium on further coal-seam gas projects in the Murray-Darling food bowl that overlay the great artesian basin, according to a parliamentary inquiry into the social and environmental impact of the controversial industry.   
The report by the Senate committee on rural affairs and transport, handed down today, also calls on Canberra and the states to jointly establish a trust funded by the gas companies to pay for rectification from leaking wells, subsidence and erosion arising from drilling and piping.

Committee chairman, Liberal senator Bill Heffernan, said the committee was deeply concerned about the 700,000 tonnes of salt produced annually as a by-product of coal-seam gas extraction.

Warning that the booming industry had the potential to have a “severe impact” on food production in the Murray-Darling, which takes in gas fields in southwestern Queensland and north and central west NSW, the veteran senator said the committee had recommended that CSG production be excluded from prime agricultural land.


The Australian

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