GARY Packard says the picture painted by the oil and gas companies to his elderly mother when the mining boom started 12 years ago looks nothing like the reality he’s now facing.
He said his mother believed she would become a millionaire through royalties derived from the mineral reserves underneath their land at Crazy Woman Creek.
But he said they fell short of being millionaires by about $2 million and were now spending tens of thousands of dollars on legal costs, fighting to have their land and water repaired.
Since the family’s 4000-hectare dryland ranch was drilled on by the oil and gas companies, their water has disappeared and the farm no longer has the pastures to support his 300 breeders and replacements.
Roads, pipelines and powerlines now blot the Powder River Basin landscape and the riches promised to ranches hadn’t eventuated.
“We got a good surface user agreement but most of that’s just been ignored,” said Mr Packard.
“Australian farmers need to get prepared because you are going to get shafted and it will happen to you because that’s the way the oil and gas companies do business – there’s no reclamation.”
Stock and Land
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