THE Hunter Valley Protection Alliance has launched a social media campaign as part of its efforts to push the coal seam gas industry out of the region’s vineyards.
It has posted clips on YouTube it says are aimed at countering the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s ‘‘we want coal seam gas’’ advertising campaign.
The two clips from the alliance say coal seam gas would be the ‘‘death of the Hunter Valley’’, and show an aerial photograph of the web of gas wells at Chinchilla in Queensland.
The alliance and Hunter winemakers have urged the state government to excise the vineyards at Pokolbin and Broke from AGL’s exploration licence area.
They fear it will destroy the annual $75million tourism trade of their cellar doors and potentially compromise its prized product, worth $210million a year, because of fugitive methane emissions and potential deterioration of ground and surface water quality and quantity.
The gas company is seeking to renew its licence.
Alliance chairman Stewart Ewen said its members thought it ‘‘imperative’’ to refute the claims of the gas industry that its activities were safe.
Newcastle Herald
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