Urban sprawl, mining, reserves biting into best farmland

AUSTRALIA risks losing some of its best farmland to urban sprawl, mining and conservation reserves because it has no national policy to protect and prioritise agricultural production.

The amount of land lost to agricultural production is still small on a national level but sometimes significant at a local level, according to research released today by the Australian Farm Institute.

But, without any Australia-wide system to classify or map farmland according to its agricultural potential, or any national political will to give food production a long-term value or specific protection, the institute fears these losses will hasten and worsen.

Institute executive director Mick Keogh said the two-year research project by scientists and planners from La Trobe and RMIT universities, led by land-use expert Trevor Budge, questioned if Australia risked being profligate in wasting or taking out of production its best farmland.

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The Australian

Miners ramp up offshore recruitment

SHORTAGE: Mining companies are desperate for skilled workers. Source: The Courier-Mail

THE resources industry is ramping up overseas recruitment of skilled workers, even without the controversial enterprise migration schemes that have caused upheavals in the Federal Government.

A Queensland Resources Council survey found the state's skills shortage is so dire it is taking up to 200 days to employ a worker and companies have no choice but to go hunting overseas.

In the Bowen Basin, companies are struggling to recruit process and mining engineers, geologists and surveyors.

A worrying issue is that some jobs, such as open cut examiners and mine deputies, are a legal requirement and mines cannot operate without them.

Skilled fitters and turners and electricians are also difficult to find and expectations in the industry are that projects will not proceed without access to foreign workers.

The QRC found there was a commitment by most companies to recruit locally, but competition for workers was high as the coal seam gas sector in Queensland and NSW was expanding so rapidly.

 

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Courier Mail

 

Editor's Note:   Another Labor Government exclusive!!  Hello?   What ever happened to Australian jobs for Australian people?  Hello? Hello?  Is there anybody out there??? 

QLD GasFields Commission criticised for rushing

ON JULY 1, the new Queensland GasFields Commission will begin the complex task of sifting through the long list of complex issues associated with coal seam gas development in the state.

However, according to Queensland Farmers Federation, the commission has had a turbulent beginning and there is an increasing risk that parts of the process are being rushed to meet what is considered to be an arbitrary start date.

QFF chief executive officer Dan Galligan said farmers appreciate the new government’s mandate for action – and know action is required – but not to the point where this risks policy shortcomings or a loss of faith in the process, which would be otherwise avoided from a more considered process.

“Farmers and the community have been given just one month to provide feedback to the commission, and this process is occurring concurrently with expressions of interest for people to sit as commissioners,” he explained.

“How can a stakeholder reasonably express an unqualified interest in sitting on the commission when its form, functions, terms of reference and responsibilities are not yet known?

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Kondinin Group

Property compensation review

A LEADING expert in property compensation law has welcomed the State government’s commitment to examine and review compensation legislation as it applies to property rights.

University of Technology Sydney Asia-Pacific Centre for Complex Real Property Rights deputy director John Sheehan - who is also the chair of the Australia Property Institute’s government liaison committee - said the legislation needed better clarity as to how land was defined.

 

Minister for Finance and Services Greg Pearce said the review into the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Com-pensation) Act fulfilled an election promise to examine the legislation as part of the State government’s Strategic Regional Land Use Policy.

 

"It is well known that compulsory acquisition of private land and its impacts have been an ongoing area of stakeholder concern for many years," he said.

 

The government has appointed David Russell SC to prepare an issues paper which would facilitate public consultation.

 

NSW Farmers president Fiona Simson said property rights were a key challenge for the association’s 9000 members, as well as for protecting food security.

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The Land

Australia Needs Better Data on Farmland to Manage Mining

Australia, the second-biggest wheat exporter, needs to improve information on its agricultural real estate to manage competition for land from mining and energy interests, the Australian Farm Institute said.

“Australia does not have a national policy approach about whether areas of high quality agricultural land need to be preserved for that purpose,” according to a report released today by the institute, which conducts farm policy research. “There is not even a national agreement on what should be considered to be strategically important agricultural land.”

Coal-seam gas producers in the country, the top shipper of iron ore, coal and wool, are facing opposition from groups concerned their drilling methods contaminate and deplete water supplies and cut the capacity of food-producing land. New South Wales plans to begin a process of granting and renewing coal- seam gas exploration licenses in June after keeping them on hold to review the environmental and safety impact, Chris Hartcher, the state’s resource minister, said March 20.

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Bloomberg

Stay out of Toro talks, Martu tell outsiders

TRADITIONAL owners of the land where Toro Energy plans Western Australia's first uranium mine have warned outsiders to stay away from their constructive talks with the company.

Senior Martu lawmen believe Toro has listened to their concerns in informal talks and they are ready to begin formal negotiations for a mining agreement with the company.

The South Australian-based company last week became the first of several explorers in the region to receive environmental approvals for a uranium mine within WA.

The mine is planned for 30km south of Wiluna, almost 1000km northeast of Perth. The 184,000sq km shire has a population of less than 2000.

Yesterday Darren Farmer, an indigenous spokesman for the native title claimants, said there was a range of views about the mine among the Martu.

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The Australian

Stop Coal Seam Gas (CSG) - The People Movement

We acknowledge and stand with Australia's Sovereign First Peoples - www.nationalunitygovernment.org
This clip submitted to The People Movement Archive by activism0001

In NSW the principle legislation is the NSW Petroleum (Onshore) Act 1991, which does not even mention coal seam gas. In Queensland, the industry is partly regulated under the Minerals Resources Act 1989 and partly under the Petroleum and Gas (Safety) Act 2004. Large CSG projects may be designated 'state significant' in which case a streamlined and very favourable assessment process will apply under the Queensland State Development and Public Works Organisations Act 1971 or Part 3A of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979 in NSW. In both states, despite being a large user of water, the industry is exempt from State Water Acts. The industry is self-regulated, with governments generally reliant on information supplied by the industry itself. Environmental regulation is ineffective and the responsible agencies lack the resources to undertake many compliance and enforcement responsibilities.

What to do?

Do not allow company representatives onto your land for any reason. Meet them at your gate for any discussion, preferably with a neighbour, but never alone. Record every moment, ideally with a video camera. Tell them you are Locking The Gate and refuse them access to your property. A simple "No Trespassers" sign on all access gates will keep them away. Your have a legal right to do this that will be upheld by the courts.

The industry will try to charm you and persuade you that their activities will be minimal. A typical line is "We have no plan to ..." . However, experience shows that plans always change. Initial agreements and compensation may have seemed fair and reasonable, but many landholders have found that the development escalated well beyond what was agreed upon - without consultation.

If you allow access to your property you will lose of control of your life, your property and your business. Once they are into the gas production phase they have a legal right to enter your property with or without your permission.

For more:
http://lockthegate.org.au/
http://www.bsane.org/
http://www.facebook.com/ThePeopleMovement

Norwest Energy: closer to unlocking value with Perth Basin shale gas exploration and evaluation

The upcoming fracture stimulation test in the Perth Basin is expected to offer valuable insight into the shale gas potential of the Basin and add significantly to the market capitalisation of Norwest Energy.

Norwest Energy (ASX: NWE) is currently poised to carry out key fracture stimulation operations on its Arrowsmith-2 exploration well; positive results here will be a key driver to unlocking the shale gas potential of the Perth Basin, Western Australia.

Should this current program prove up the ability of the thick shale intervals in the Basin to produce gas (and possibly liquids in the higher zones), the likely result will be an expanded work program for the Company, aimed at both full appraisal of the discovery and implementation of an extended development plan for future activities.

The Company has not neglected the conventional oil and gas potential of its Perth Basin assets either, with ongoing work continuing throughout the Basin across its other assets, in order to further assess the leads and prospects in one of Australia’s petroleum provinces.

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Proactive Investor

CSG waiting game

Local famer Stuart Gall, at his property ‘Tycannah’, believes the government should put the brakes on Coal Seam Gas mining until more in depth studies are done.

THE fight to halt Coal Seam Gas mining exploration has fallen on deaf ears with the New South Wales Government determined to push forward with the development of the CSG industry.

NSW resources and energy Minister Chris Hartcher has told industry leaders that the government is right behind CSG mining.

 

NSW has a “huge challenge and a huge opportunity”, Mr Hartcher said.

 

He believes the development of the state’s CSG reserves would need to take place while engaging with farmers and environmentalists who had concerns including “possible challenges to the protection of the most valuable resource of all in Australia - water”.

 

Mr Hartcher believes untapped resources represent more than 250 years of supply.

So the big question on everybody’s mind is: can farmers and gas companies co-exist?

Local farmer Stuart Gall said he doesn’t believe enough has been done to put landholder’s fears at ease.

 
“From the information we have received I don’t think it’s safe,” Mr Gall said.

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Moree Champion

Bid to ban coal seam gas mining

CANADA Bay council has joined other inner-west Sydney councils in opposing coal seam gas mining in the area.

Greens Cr Pauline Tyrrell said Dart Energy’s coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licence covered the whole of the Sydney metropolitan area, including the Canada Bay Council area.

Cr Tyrrell raised a motion against CSG mining which was passed at the council meeting last week.

A spokesman for the energy company did not rule out exploration in any specific areas.

“Dart Energy has commissioned an independent land use study that will recommend a small number of areas for exploration work within industrial and commercial areas,” he said.

The land use study has not yet been completed.

Cr Tyrrell said even if drilling happened somewhere else, it could affect water in a large area.

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Inner West Courier

Who owns coal seam gas in New South Wales (and who can stop it being mined)?

Earlier this week, Marrickville City Council in suburban Sydney blocked an attempt to mine coal seam gas on privately owned land in the inner-city area of St Peters. The Council imposed a condition on the development application order for the land, purporting to ban the land being used for coal seam gas mining. This ban raises a number of important issues: who owns the CSG under private land, and what does the decision mean for other NSW councils opposed to CSG mining?

Dart Energy holds numerous exploration licences across Sydney (including at this St Peters site, where the land is owned by Dial-a-Dump). These licences have been granted in accordance with Part 3 of the Mining Act 1992 (NSW). The validity of the exploration licence and the power to carry out exploratory drills for coal seam gas is, in turn, premised on the notion that coal seam gas is a mineral that comes within the scope of this Act.

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The Conversation (11.05.12)

Indigenous groups spark outcry over bid to tap coal-seam gas

ABORIGINAL groups in NSW are poised to enter the lucrative coal-seam gas industry, putting them on a collision course with environmental and farmers' groups.

The NSW Aboriginal Land Council, the umbrella group for local land councils, has applied to the NSW government for CSG exploration licences covering two-thirds of NSW.

The move has triggered claims by anti-CSG groups that traditional owners are being used as "puppets" by private interests and should pursue "more noble ways" of securing economic independence, such as growing vegetables.

But land council boss Geoff Scott said yesterday the comments by opponents of the application were premature, and Aborigines would negotiate with all stakeholders if the licences were granted and CSG was found.

"We're as concerned with the impact of mining on the environment as anyone else," he said.

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The Australian

BHP strikes a rich funding seam

There is a striking contrast between the renewed turmoil in European bond markets overnight, as it became apparent that the European Union hasn’t been able to reach any agreements on responding to the Greeks revolt against austerity or shoring up the eurozone banks, and announcements from two major Australian resource groups today.

Against the backdrop of European investors pouring money into German bonds in a scramble for safety, the announcements that BHP Billiton has raised €2 billion ($A2.6 billion) and the Origin Energy-led Australia Pacific LNG $US8.5 billion in project funding for its Queensland coal seam gas project is striking.

BHP priced a two tranche euro bond issue overnight, raising €1.25 billion ($A1.6 billion) at 2.125 per cent with an issue that matures in 2018, and €750 million ($A1 billion) at 3 per cent maturing in 2024.

Origin said APLNG had signed definitive project finance agreements with the Export-Import Bank of the US and a syndicate of domestic and international commercial banks. The agreements run for 16 and 17 years respectively. China’s Export-Import Bank has signed a commitment letter for its share of the facilities.

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Business Spectator

Ohio Drilling Regulations Would Bar Doctors From Publicly Revealing Chemicals

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Doctors given new access to the proprietary chemical recipes that oil and gas drillers use to crack into Ohio shale would be prohibited from sharing the information with the public under an energy proposal moving through the Ohio House.

Environmentalists liken the restriction to a gag order on medical professionals. Drilling companies say it's necessary to protect trade secrets.

On Tuesday, the Ohio State Medical Association, Ohio's largest doctors' group, said the wording of the provision could keep physicians from complying with mandates for public-health reporting.

"The OSMA strongly believes that physicians should have access to all of the relevant information needed to deliver high-quality medical care to their patients," senior director of government relations Tim Maglione wrote in a letter to Public Utilities Chairman Peter Stautberg. "This information also needs to be shared with other medical providers who are contributing to caring for a patient."

The association urged lawmakers to clarify the provision so that chemical trade secrets can be shared with public health and regulatory agencies. Environmental groups testified earlier the wording could also prevent doctors from sharing chemical information with first responders to chemical spills at well sites.

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Huffington Post Green

GBM mining boost

EXPLORATION company GBM Resources' farm-in partners, Pan Pacific and Mitsui, have signalled their commitment to advance four projects in the mineral-rich Mount Isa region by announcing a $3.8 million exploration budget until March 2013.

The projects covers 1,580 km of prospective multi-minerals ground in the eastern succession of the Mount Isa inlier.

 

The increased exploration budget for 2012 will support geophysical surveys and extensive drilling of over 10,000 metres on a range of targets over the Bungalien, Grassy/Talawanta, Mount Margaret, and Chumvale projects.

 

Exploration in 2011 uncovered buried iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) mineralisation at Bronzewing Bore, one of a number of targets identified in the Bungalien project area.

 

GBM intersected a broad interval of anomalous copper mineralisation from the first drill hole completed on the Bungalien project farm in area, confirming a new IOCG system.

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North West Star

Boggabri farmers ignored

The blockade of environmentalists, farmers and residents in Boggabri, protest the likely expansion of an existing coal project.

BOGGABRI farmers, residents and environmentalists blockaded Leard Forest Road last week, angry that a massive expansion by Japanese-owned Idemitsu for its existing Boggabri Coal project is likely to proceed, while Aston Coal’s Maules Creek proposal has received a tick from the Planning Assessment Commission (PAC).

Idemitsu Australia, a subsidiary of Japanese company Idemitsu Kosan, wants a 21-year extension of Boggabri Coal, closing Leard Forest Road and doubling coal production from 3.2 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 7mtpa in a $350 million development.

 

Maules Creek Community Coun-cil (MCCC) spokesman and cotton farmer Peter Watson said locals were at the end of their tether.

 

He said the community felt their appeals to the mine and State government against the expansion had been ignored.

 

The Department of Planning is yet to determine both the Boggabri Coal expansion and the separately owned Maules Creek project, which seeks to extract 13mtpa in a 21-year open cut mine.

 

“Protest was the only option left open to us; we’ve tried every other avenue,” Mr Watson said.

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The Land

ICAC to examine mining licences

THE disgraced former NSW resources minister Ian Macdonald is to face a new corruption inquiry into the granting of coal exploration licences.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption said in a statement yesterday that Mr Macdonald is being investigated for allegedly using his ministerial position ''to advantage the private interests of others''.

While the commission has not publicly announced who those ''others'' might be, one of those whose private interests could potentially come under the spotlight is the former Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid, who resigned from the NSW Parliament last year.

Mr Obeid's family bought a farm in the Bylong Valley near Mount Penny in late 2007, nine months before Mr Macdonald announced an invitation-only tender process for 11 exploration licences.

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Brisbane Times

Launch : Gladstone Conservation Council

Victoria: Expand Mining, Report Says

Victoria has fallen behind other states and overseas jurisdictions and should do more to develop its mineral resources and encourage heavy-industry construction and exploration, an inquiry has found.

In a final report now tabled in Parliament, the Victorian Parliament’s Economic Development and Infrastructure Committee (EDIC) says Victoria’s share of national mineral exploration spending has fallen to just two per cent at a time when the rest of Australia is deriving enormous benefits from the mining boom.

“A successful mining industry laid the foundations for making Victoria the great state it is today,” committee chair and MP for Hastings Neale Burgess says. “While the resources sector is again creating employment and building wealth for communities throughout Australia and around the world, Victorians have been missing out.”

The committee says it received ‘overwhelming’ evidence that regulation of exploration and mining in Victoria is overly complex, has become difficult to navigate and requires simplification.

In total, the EDIC’s report makes 25 recommendations relating to areas such as the industry’s legislative and regulatory framework, finance and taxation arrangements, geoscientific research and education land management and environmental protection.

Of these, key recommendations include making more crown land available for exploration, the introduction of time limits for project approval times and a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach to regulation.

The Committee also wants better processes to ensure that communities are consulted about potential coal-seam-gas (CSG) projects in their region.

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Design Build Source

Taking action to lock Glen gates

Glen Innes action group ; Abraham Jennings, Zialina Earth, Heather Rogers, Enaowyn O'Sirideain, Chloe Fennessy-Sleet and Ayesha Sleet attended the action group’s meeting last week.

THE Northern New England area may be sitting on a dome of granite but that, according to local Lock the Gate affiliate group, does not make the region safe from CSG mining.

This was part of the message delivered to the thirty four people who attended the Glen Innes Coal Seam Gas video and discussion evening last week.

 

Enaowyn O’Sirideain, a spokesperson for the newly formed group is, like most people battling for the protection of the land, outraged with the government’s handling of mining and exploration rights and believes if the community here is forewarned and therefore forearmed, the “catastrophe” that has occurred in the North West, the Pilliga and Liverpool Plains can be avoided here.

 

“According to area maps provided in the Draft Strategic Land Use Plan, (DSLUP) two thirds of the New England region has large gas reserves or other mining resources, primarily on agricultural land.

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Glen Innes Examiner

Origin's LNG project secures $A8.7bn loan

The Australia Pacific LNG joint venture has secured $US8.5 billion ($A8.71 billion) in funding for its massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Queensland.

Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) is made up of Origin Energy, US giant ConocoPhillips and China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec).

On Thursday, it said a finance facility had been secured with the Export-Import Bank of the United States, The Export-Import Bank of China, and a syndicate of Australian and international commercial banks.

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SMH

Farmers in SA told to lock the 'fracking' gate

AQUIFER HEALTH: Balnaves vineyard manager Pete Balnaves, Coonawarra, says the sustainability of groundwater in the region is vital to his industry."There's two aquifers in the region, the unconfined aquifer and the confined aquifer below that," Pete said. "While there is some natural leakage between the two, we wouldn't like to see any human-induced leakage."

LARGE swathes of agricultural land in the South East, Far North, and the Lower and Mid North have been named as potential targets for a controversial gas extraction technique that has been banned in France and Vermont in the United States.

The State Government's draft Roadmap for Unconventional Gas Projects in SA, released last week, reveals exploration for coal seam gas, shale and tight gas is well under way in the regions and lauded its potential as an alternative to coal-fired electricity production.

 

This is despite hydraulic fracturing, or fracking - the process by which gas is released from coal seams and shale through high-pressure injection of chemical-rich water to fracture and open up the earth - remaining suspended in New South Wales while an independent review into the process and standards is concluded.

 

The SA exploration licences - which cover parts of the Coonawarra wine region and are adjacent to the Clare Valley - are being driven by more than 20 companies and joint ventures responding to the success of unconventional gas in the US, the processing and sale of which has rocketed in the past few years, due mainly to shale gas extraction.

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Stock Journal

Academic airs CSG aquifer fears

A legal expert says the State Government must strengthen water use guidelines before coal seam gas (CSG) extraction begins in Victoria.

A parliamentary inquiry has called on the Government to strengthen consultation processes around CSG projects.

However, a Deakin Law School associate professor, Samantha Hepburn, says the report failed to recognise that damage to aquifers is one of the most significant issues posed by extracting the gas.

She says rules about water use by CSG projects should consider drought conditions.

"It doesn't have as much of an effect when we've got a bit of water around but we are an arid landscape and so when that does happen, when it does come around, it could be catastrophic," she said.

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ABC Ballarat

Water report sparks debate

THE highly anticipated Draft Underground Water Impact Report by the Queensland Water Commission has sparked a new round of debate across the bush.

The report found 85 bores were expected to be affected by Coal Seam Gas activity within three years and 528 bores in the long term.

 

These were among some 21,000 private water bores in the Surat cumulative management area.

 

Stakeholders are now invited to submit their feedback on the draft report. Submissions close at 5pm on June 22.

 

Queensland Country Life sought reaction to the report findings from a range of key stakeholders.

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QCL

Battle for the Kimberley

 

Police chaperone equipment taken to the gas hub site at James Price Point, the development of which is opposed by locals. Photo: Angela Wylie

On the face of it, a $35 billion gas plant, ancient rock art and pristine coastal waters that attract wildlife and tourists don't go well together. No wonder sparks are flying in Broome.

ONCE it was paradise, an enchanted land of wild beauty, with endless beaches of dazzling white sand beneath magnificent red cliffs along the Kimberley coast. For more than a century people from all over the world were drawn there by the pearl-rich sea. In the old port of Broome, they settled and intermarried, creating a place of racial harmony unique in Australia, with its own language, cuisine and music. In more recent times tourists have flocked there to enjoy its idyllic charm.

But everything is changing. The West Australian government wants to turn Broome into another Dubai, with a $35 billion liquefied natural gas plant 60 kilometres north of the town at pristine James Price Point. If it wins federal government approval it will be the world's biggest, producing 12 million tonnes of liquefied gas a year.

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SMH