AN announcement that coal seam gas fracking contaminated the drinking water of a US community should be a wake-up call for the nation, the Australian Greens say.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has for the first time implicated fracking - a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells - in causing groundwater pollution.
Health officials advised a Wyoming community not to drink their water after the EPA found hydrocarbons from fracking in their wells.
Australian Greens senator for Queensland Larissa Waters said that, although Australia's hydrology was different from America's, the same thing could happen here.
She cited a 2009 case when the Queensland Gas Company accidentally contaminated the Springbok aquifer in the Western Darling Downs.
The Queensland Water Commission had admitted last week that its "knowledge in the space was evolving'', Senator Waters said in a statement.
Courier Mail
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