COAL seam gas extraction could provide farmers with more water for crops and livestock, a CSIRO expert says.
Farmers are resisting the big expansion of coal seam gas in Queensland and NSW, where state governments are pursuing legislation to protect farmland in response to a rural backlash.
Farmers are concerned about the impact on land and water, including the risk of land subsidence, contamination of aquifers with chemicals used in gas extraction and the disposal of salt and brine, The Australian Financial Review reports.
But the deputy chief of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Peter Stone, said these risks were not high.
"The risk of contamination from hydraulic fracking and faulty wells isn't considered to be great," Dr Stone told the ABARES conference in Canberra on Wednesday.
He said water brought to the surface through the process of gas extraction could be treated and used by farmers to increase their water supplies or to reduce the effects of agriculture on shallow aquifers.
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The Land
Editor's Note.... yeah right, I believe a Government run Laboratory.
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