CSIRO vents over gas claims

THE CSIRO has asked Australia's oil and gas industry lobby group to withdraw an advertisement claiming the nation's peak scientific group had given coal-seam gas a clean bill of health. 

  

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association commercial says CSIRO and government studies have shown that CSG extraction is not a threat to groundwater.

 

But yesterday the CSIRO said it rejected the claim and had asked that the advertisement not be aired.

 

"At no time has CSIRO made such a statement, and nor do the results of CSIRO research support such a statement," it said. "CSIRO has stated on the public record that coal-seam gas extraction is likely to pose a 'low risk' to groundwater quality through contamination.

 

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The Australian

Concern over coal seam gas grows

Esso has defended its plans to explore for coal seam gas deposits in Gippsland at a public meeting in Sale this week.

 

About 100 people attended a public meeting on coal seam gas on Monday, organised by the newly-formed Wellington Coal Seam Gas Wellington Awareness Group.

 

Representatives from Doctors for the Environment, the Environment Defenders Office and Monash University spoke about the potential risks associated with CSG mining and exploration and landholders rights to refuse mining.

 

Esso, an affiliate of ExxonMobil, was not invited to speak at the event but a company representative attended the meeting and answered questions from the crowd.

 

Esso and Ignite Energy Resources hold licences to explore coal seam gas options in large areas of Gippsland.

 

Read More and Listen to Audio

 

ABC Gippsland

CSIRO rejects coal seam gas claims

The CSIRO has rejected claims made by the coal seam gas industry in a new TV advertising campaign, and asked last week that the ads not be aired.

 

The commercial includes the statement: "CSIRO [and government studies] have shown that groundwater is safe with coal seam gas".

 

However, the national science body said this afternoon that this claim was not true.

"At no time has CSIRO made such a statement, and nor do the results of CSIRO research support such a statement," the organisation said.

 

 "CSIRO has stated on the public record that coal seam gas extraction is likely to pose a 'low risk' to groundwater quality through contamination," it said.

 

The TV commercials were produced for the coal seam gas industry body, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, which said it had "taken the CSIRO's comments on board".

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Canberra Times

Air pollution reaching extreme levels, warns Hunter Valley council

"We're concerned that the Hunter Valley is going to end up being a brick pit and not much else" ... Graeme Gibson. Photo: Max Mason Hubers

HUNTER VALLEY winemakers and residents will today step up the campaign against mining in their backyards as the local council warns dust in the region is reaching ''extreme'' levels.

 

In an email to a Singleton councillor on Saturday, the council's general manager, Lindy Hyam, said she had written to the head of NSW Environment Protection Authority after five separate official ''health alerts'' relating to air pollution at Mount Thorley, near Singleton, were issued in a matter of weeks.

 

Each alert stated that air pollution had ''exceeded national health standards for PM10'', or particulate matter 10 micrometres or less in diameter.

 

''I also went out and had a look,'' Ms Hyam said in the email on Saturday. ''It was like a dust storm. Extreme in my view.''

 

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SMH

Sean Lennon Attacks Fracking in Op-Ed

Process of extracting natural gas is 'dirty energy,' singer says

 

By Rolling Stone

August 28, 2012 12:00 PM ET

 

 

Sean Lennon ripped fracking today in a New York Times op-ed, saying the process of extracting natural gas has been falsely portrayed as "clean." "Natural gas has been sold as clean energy," Lennon wrote. "But when the gas comes from fracturing bedrock with about five million gallons of toxic water per well, the word 'clean' takes on a disturbingly Orwellian tone. Don't be fooled."

 

Fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, uses water and chemicals to free natural gas trapped in rock deposits below the surface of the earth. Lennon says there's simply no way the process can be clean. "Fracking for shale gas is in truth dirty energy," he writes. "It inevitably leaks toxic chemicals into the air and water. Industry studies show that 5 percent of wells can leak immediately, and 60 percent over 30 years. There is no such thing as pipes and concrete that won't eventually break down.

It releases a cocktail of chemicals from a menu of more than 600 toxic substances, climate-changing methane, radium and, of course, uranium."

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Rolling Stone

Human sign against coal seam gas mining at Sydney Park

On Saturday 13th October 2012, there will be an Australia-wide campaign by ‘Lock The Gate’ to fight coal seam gas mining. Local community group Stop CSG Sydney is joining this campaign by holding a human sign event in Sydney Park to spell out – STOP COAL SEAM GAS! A documentary filmmaker will film the human sign event.

 

Stop CSG Sydney says, “While we’ve fought back CSG so far in the inner west, the CSG industry is pushing forward in other parts of Sydney, in our water catchments & in our food bowl. The only way the community will be safe is if the O’Farrell government cancels Dart Energy’s licence & bans CSG mining in our water catchments, food producing lands & key environmental areas.”

 

Come with everyone you know. This should be a fun way to send a strong message to the NSW state government.

 

You can register for the event, which will help planning, or just turn up on the day. Volunteers to help on the day are also welcome. http://www.nogasmininginsydney.com/

 

WHEN: Saturday 13th October 2012

TIME: Noon

WHERE: Sydney Park. Meet at the old brickworks chimneys at the corner of Sydney Park Road & Princes Highway.

BRING: Drinking water & dress for the weather.

 

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Saving Our Trees Blog

Red Sky Energy to complete Clarence Moreton farm in deal with ERM Gas

Red Sky Energy (ASX: ROG) expects its farm in agreement with ERM Gas (ASX: EPW) to reach financial close late this week, accelerating exploration and development of its Clarence Moreton Basin acreage.

Under the agreement, ERM Gas will pay Red Sky up to A$2.7 million upon achievement of certain milestones and will fund the drilling of at least six and up to nine wells in the New South Wales coal seam gas acreage.

ERM Gas will earn a 80% stake in PEL 478 and 60% in PEL 479 and PEL 457.

Red Sky will also place 150 million shares to ERM Gas at a share price equal to the Volume Weighted Average Price for the five days preceding the execution date of the agreement, giving ERM Gas a 9.5% stake in Red Sky.

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Proactive Investors

Josephite Sisters oppose increase in coal seam gas mining

The Sisters of St Joseph are the third religious community to publicly voice their concern about the rapid escalation of coal seam gas exploration and will shortly launch an online petition, reports the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney.

 

"Coal seam gas is not a clean energy source, merely something cleaner than brown coal as it produces slightly less greenhouse gas," says Sister Jan Barnett rsj of the Canberra-based Josephite Justice Office.

 

"The rapid increase in licences for the exploration and mining of coal seam gas has enormous implications for our farmers, farmlands and rural communities as well as many regional towns and even cities such as Sydney," she says pointing to proposals to mine coal seam gas in heavily built-up areas such as St Peters, Rosebery and Eastern Creek.

 

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Cath News

Hunter minefield

The Chapman Family

 

ON January 10, 2011, NSW Department of Trade and Investment executive director for mineral resources Brad Mullard wrote a letter to the Chapman family of Appletree Flat.

 

He told them the department had been requested to issue a permit giving Doyles Creek Mining Pty Ltd access to the Chapman property to carry out an environmental assessment, and it was the department's intention to issue the permit.

 

Any dispute with the issued permit "should be referred to the Land and Environment Court for resolution", the Chapmans were told.

 

By that time the NSW Labor government minister who approved the Doyles Creek exploration licence, Ian Macdonald, had resigned from parliament and was being described as the "disgraced" former minister, over travel issues.

 

The public already knew the Doyles Creek exploration licence was granted to a company part-owned by a mate of Macdonald's, the former union boss John Maitland.

 

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Newcastle Herald

Arrow Energy says staying away from the Scenic Rim is sensible

Arrow Energy have put a hold on exploration for coal seam gas in the Scenic Rim.
Heidi Ross from "Keep the Scenic Rim scenic" spoke to Steve Austin

Click Here to go to Audio

Mornings with Steve Austin
612 ABC Brisbane

Comminuty Meeting : Ipswich

The next community meeting about the toxic dump at New Chum will be on the 15th September. 1pm-3pm. School of Arts Hall, Redbank.

 

An aboriginal woman who lives close to the toxic dump and whose 1yr old baby has been scarred for life because of it, will be in attendence. She will be showing everyone there, the horrific scars on her baby's body from when he was two months old and was covered in rashes from the chemicals/toxins from the landfill. She will also be explaining the extent to which many people living close to the dump are sick and covered in rashes and sores.

Update from Toxic Tours Ipswich

Ipswich City Council, and its representatives, are still refusing to acknowledge the harm that it, along with the state govrernment, has done to Ipswich residents.

 

Both levels of government have allowed over one hundred CSG mines to be placed in and around Ipswich; they have allowed CSG pipes to run throughout Ipswich suburbs; they have allowed the largest toxic dumps in the Southern Hemisphere to be placed close to resident's homes; they have just approved the 2nd gas-fired power station to be built at Swanbank; they have zoned over one-third of Ipswich's land mass "high-impact industrial" (which contains noxious and hazardous activities - "noxious" means harmful to humans).

 

 If the Ipswich City Council wants Toxic Tours Ipswich to stop showing community members how dangerous it is to live in Ipswich, then they should get rid of the CSG mines, close down the toxic dumps, close down the existing gas-fired power station and invest in renewable energy sources, not allow the 2nd gas-fired power station to go ahead and rezone Ipswich - so that it's not comprised of hazardous and harmful industrial activities. Signed Dr Patricia Petersen.

 

Land use and the National Food Plan

Australia faces the challenge of generating a secure food future with limited arable land so how agriculture and other interests, like mining, co-exist is a serious question for agriculture's long term future.

 

Land use has been a contentious topic in the Margaret River, a site for a recent National Food Plan community consultation.

 

Farmers here fought to stop a push into farmland by coal mining interests.

 

Click Here to Go to Audio

 

ABC Rural

Yoko Ono, son launch anti-fracking coalition in NY

Yoko Ono, left, and her son Sean Lennon, right, listen during an interview, following the launch of a coalition of artists opposing hydraulic fracturing on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012 in New York. Lennon and Ono have joined the coalition called Artist Against Fracking to lobby Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ban the practice of drilling for gas in New York. Photo: Bebeto Matthews / AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Yoko Ono and her son, Sean Lennon, on Wednesday launched a coalition of artists, musicians and filmmakers who oppose hydraulic fracturing in New York state.

 

The formation of the group Artists Against Fracking was announced at a news conference in Manhattan with Ono, Lennon and Mark Ruffalo, who has long been outspoken on the issue. Other celebrities joining the coalition's cause include Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney and Alec Baldwin.

 

The group's formation comes as Gov. Andrew Cuomo prepares to decide whether to allow shale gas drilling using high-volume hydraulic fracturing — known as hydrofracking, or fracking — after four years of studying its health and environmental impacts. The process uses millions of gallons of chemically treated water to blast open gas-rich shale deposits deep underground.

 

Ono and Lennon are calling on the governor to ban drilling in New York, which they said can cause gas wells to leak harmful methane into water supplies. They said their group has requested a meeting with Cuomo to discuss the issue.

 

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SFGate.com

A Question?

 

 

The Wildnerness Society, W.A

Workers made to sleep under stars

A housing shortage is forcing workers in Chinchilla to pitch tents on vacant land

 

RESIDENTS of Chinchilla are battling "tent city" syndrome, with an increasing number of workers and families unable to secure proper housing.

 

The Surat Basin Property Group has been working combat the spread of makeshift accommodation, but the company says demand is increasingly outpacing supply.

The resources sector continues to boom and rental vacancies continue to plummet.

Statistics from SQM Research shows Chinchilla has a rental vacancy rate of just 1.9 per cent, higher than other popular mining regions in Western Australia and Queensland including Karratha (4.3%) and Moranbah (5.1%).

Long time Chinchilla local and SBPG director Greg West said the sight of tradesmen sleeping in tents on house construction sites in the middle of town indicated how tight accommodation in the resource-rich region was.

 

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Toowoomba Chronicle

Peru's Conga Gold Mine Project Opposed By Local Farmers

In this Aug. 21, 2012 photo, residents protest the Conga gold and silver mining project as they march past the Mamacocha Lagoon in Mamachocha, Peru, in the highlands of the northern state of Cajamarca. The mostly subsistence farmers who live downstream of what would become Peru's biggest open-pit gold mine oppose the project, known as Conga, for one simple reason: Water. The project would destroy four mountain lakes in order to extract more than 200 tons of gold. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia).

 

LA ENCANADA, Peru — The farmers who live downstream of what would become Peru's biggest open-pit gold mine oppose the project, known as Conga, for one simple reason: Water.

 

"Everything would dry up," says German Sangay, the mayor of Combayo, if Congas is not halted.

 

The project on 11.5 square miles (more than 3,000 hectares) of highlands in the northern state of Cajamarca would destroy four mountain lakes in order to extract more than 200 tons of gold.

 

The consortium that runs it, and whose majority owner is U.S.-based Newmont Mining Co., says it will build four reservoirs to replace the lakes.

 

But local elected officials including Sangay aren't persuaded. Combayo's nearly 4,000 peasant farmers draw on 30 different springs to grow corn and potatoes and raise cattle and sheep and fear Conga would taint and diminish them, he says.

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Huffington Post Green

Exoma Energy, CNOOC targeting shale oil and gas with eighth Galilee Basin well

Exoma Energy (ASX: EXE) and CNOOC are continuing their aggressive drilling campaign to unlock the hydrocarbon potential of their Galilee Basin acreage with the spud of their eight well.

Rocky Creek-1 is located in ATP 999P about 110 kilometres from Longreach, Queensland. It will log and core the shale oil and gas potential of the Toolebuc Shale.

Analysis of core samples will provide additional information on the distribution of shale properties which will continue appraisal of the shale oil & gas resource identified by the Bessie, Euston and Katherine wells in 2011.

The well will be drilled to a total depth of 1,025 metres with the top of the Toolebuc Shale expected to be intersected at a depth of about 946 metres.

Once it is drilled, cored and logged, Rocky Creek-1 will be plugged and abandoned.

Exoma and CNOOC are drilling 22 wells to appraise the coal seam gas, conventional oil and shale oil and gas resources in their acreage, which covers 27,000 square kilometres.
The wells are designed to deliver a strategic understanding of the basic geology within the 5 permits with the objective of defining the most favourable areas in which to develop reserves.

These seek to measure and map the distribution of gas within the Permian Betts Creek and Aramac Coal measures; collect further shale geological and geochemical data on the Toolebuc shale and test conventional oil prospects.

 

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Proactive Investors

Greens predict ruin if wineries not protected

The Greens say the Hunter's vineyard area will be on the brink of ruin if it's not better protected from mining, development and coal seam gas projects.

 

Greens MP John Kaye has joined Cessnock Greens Mayoral candidate James Ryan and Council candidate David Atwell in calling for Government support for new protection legislation.

 

Mr Kaye says there is also a need to preserve the historic area of Wollombi.

 

"Wollombi is really sitting at the cusp," he said.

 

"If we don't get legislated protection for this unique village and area around in the very near future it will go and it will lose all of its special character.

 

"We're determined as Greens to make sure that doesn't happen."

 

1233 ABC Newcastle

Vic gas rig still suspended after deaths

OPERATIONS on a gas rig off the Victorian coast where two workers died remain suspended as an investigation continues. 

  

The Stena Clyde Drilling unit was operating under lease to Origin Energy, about 90km southeast of Warrnambool, when an incident on the drill floor killed two men on Monday.

 

Stena Drilling managing director Tom Welo says the company is co-operating with authorities.

 

"All operations on board the drilling unit remain suspended and both Stena Drilling and the relevant authorities are conducting thorough investigations to establish the exact cause of this tragic accident," Mr Welo said in a statement on Wednesday.

 

Stena Drilling and Origin staff are investigating the deaths, with the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA).

 

Mr Welo said the company offered its condolences to the families and friends of the dead workers.

 

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The Australian

'Fracking' in WA to be more tightly regulated

Western Australia's emerging unconventional gas sector, which undertakes a practice known as fracking, will be subject to Australia's toughest disclosure laws.

 

This follows changes to industry regulations.

 

Resource companies will be required to tell the State Government which chemicals they inject into the ground to release gas.

 

The practice of fracking could be used to produce tight or shale gas if several planned projects get off the ground in WA.

 

Mines and Petroleum Minister Norman Moore says it is important to establish strict laws while the industry is still young.

 

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ABC News

Destroying Precious Land for Gas

ON the northern tip of Delaware County, N.Y., where the Catskill Mountains curl up into little kitten hills, and Ouleout Creek slithers north into the Susquehanna River, there is a farm my parents bought before I was born. My earliest memories there are of skipping stones with my father and drinking unpasteurized milk. There are bald eagles and majestic pines, honeybees and raspberries. My mother even planted a ring of white birch trees around the property for protection.

 

A few months ago I was asked by a neighbor near our farm to attend a town meeting at the local high school. Some gas companies at the meeting were trying very hard to sell us on a plan to tear through our wilderness and make room for a new pipeline: infrastructure for hydraulic fracturing. Most of the residents at the meeting, many of them organic farmers, were openly defiant. The gas companies didn’t seem to care. They gave us the feeling that whether we liked it or not, they were going to fracture our little town.

 

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Sean Lennon (son of John)

NY Times

A message from Stop Fracking Brisbane

 

"Wake Up Queensland" !!!

 

Did you know the Queensland Government is trying to change current mining buffer zone from peoples home of current 2 kilometre buffer to just 100 metres from homes?

 

It has been rushed through Queensland Parliament in the past week and they gave epople only 3 working days to dispite or write submissions in response, obviously we missed those three days - BRISBANE - WAKE UP, THAT'S YOU!!!   You could have a mine 100 metres from your back fence!

 

 

 

 

Moratorium on fracking 'not enough', Moorabool Environment Group warns

THE state government has put on hold all hydraulic fracturing for onshore gas exploration, but Moorabool Environment Group (MEG) says the ban does not go far enough.

 

Energy and Resources Minister Michael O'Brien last week suspended all licences for "fracking" until a national framework had been considered as part of coal seam gas reform.

 

While Moorabool Council was recently urged to sign a moratorium banning coal and coal seam gas mining, a Department of Primary Industries spokesman said coal seam gas exploration was not on the agenda for exploration company Mantle Mining. An Exergen spokesman also confirmed it was not part of their plans.

 

MEG secretary Deb Porter said it wanted a ban on all new coal projects.

 

"This is a positive step forward. However, it would have provided greater community confidence in the government if all new coal projects were part of this moratorium," she said.

 

"The partial moratorium is not enough with water resources, farmland and food security, local communities and local economies and natural biodiversity all at risk from proposed new coal developments in Bacchus Marsh and the recent announcement of mining in the Wombat State Forest."

 Melton Weekly

Apex Energy seeks extension to Illawarra CSG approvals

Apex Energy has applied for more time to drill 16 coal seam gas boreholes in the Illawarra.

 

Apex Energy's approval to drill 16 exploratory wells around Helensburgh, Darkes Forest and Maddens Plains expires next month.

 

The company has applied for a new expiry date - three years after the commencement of the first bore hole, with no date specified for when drilling must begin.

 

Apex says the project has been delayed by several factors, including a complicated approval process, strong community opposition to coal seam gas and the NSW government's eagerness to allay concerns by introducing new regulations.

 

The exploration project suffered another setback earlier this year when Apex let one of its exploration licences lapse.

 

Without it, drilling cannot begin and the company is now competing for exploration rights with the New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council.

 

ABC News