THE weight of scientific evidence fuelling landholder claims that coal seam gas extraction poses a real and serious threat to important freshwater aquifers is becoming harder for the Queensland Government to ignore.
But ignoring the point it is, and despite a mountain of assurances to the contrary, the Queensland Government continues finding ways to avoid biting the bullet and conducting the independent research that is clearly needed to put the issue to rest once and for all.
All sides in the coal seam gas issue agree on one thing and that is that not enough scientific information exists to rule out potential impacts to important freshwater aquifers.
In the absence of such guarantees the Queensland Government is asking rural landholders and communities to take an extraordinary leap of faith by expecting them to accept the word of multi-national mining companies that potential risks are low and that any damage to aquifers will be fixed immediately after the event.
It is not just landholders who are being asked to take this leap of faith but all Queenslanders and Australians because it is their natural resources and the strategically-important value those resources represent to future food production capacity in Australia that is at risk.
Suggestions that CSG extraction poses a potential long term threat to agriculture have been portrayed as grossly exaggerated by CSG industry advocates. But the fact remains that more and more science is emerging to indicate that risks to freshwater aquifers that allow food producing industries to exist in inland Queensland are real and potentially significant.
The latest evidence comes in the form of a report by ex-DERM hydro-geologist John Hiller which shows the Condamine Alluvium is at genuine risk of being dewatered as a result of the rapid ongoing removal of 'wastewater' from the surrounding and hydraulically connected Walloon Coal Measures for Coal Seam Gas production on the Darling Downs.
This is not some small and relatively insignificant water source that supplies a handful of bores here and there but the State's largest freshwater aquifer, a 150m deep body of sandstone and water that sustainably underpins a farming industry that generates $50 million worth of natural food and fibre every year and is relied upon as a primary source of drinking water for several Darling Downs towns.
The main conclusion of John Hillier's report is that the hydraulic and vertical permeability of the Walloon Coal Measures has never been adequately studied and the potential threat it poses to the Condamine Alluvium means it would be derelict of the Queensland Government to allow further CSG developments to proceed until further independent research is done.
As difficult to ignore as that finding would seem to be, Natural Resources, Energy and Mines minister Stephen Robertson managed to avoid making any mention of funding an independent research study in a press release issued directly in response to Mr Hillier's report.
He instead ruled out the need for a moratorium on CSG development the Walloon Coal Measures, suggesting that such a moratorium was practically already in place thanks to the 1200 environmental conditions the Coordinator General had placed on two CSG projects approved for development in Queensland so far.
In effect, the Government has found 1200 environmental problems with two major CSG projects, but rather than suggest both companies go back and fix those problems first or provide the necessary detail on how they will manage them, it has given both projects the environmental green light to proceed, on the promise they will fix those 1200 problems at some point down the track.
It is the same cart-before-the-horse thinking that has the Government telling landholders not to worry about potential CSG impacts because there are "make good" provisions in place that will require CSG companies to fix any damage done to aquifers after the event. But as landholders justifiably ask, if CSG companies don't know enough about the underground hydrology to prevent them from causing such problems in the first place, how are they going to be able to fix them after the damage is done? This again underlines why the independent research Mr Hillier is calling for is essential.
Until that extensive base-level research is done, any groundwater model that claims to be able to predict the impact of future CSG activity on groundwater flow in the alluvium has little chance of being reliable.
Another key point identified by Mr Hillier is that groundwater moves so slowly through the Walloon Coal Measures and Condamine Alluvium that it could take 10 or 20 years for the negative effects of CSG extraction on freshwater levels to first become apparent.
In the meantime, monitoring by CSG companies and the Government would suggest that all's well while damage was slowly but surely being done, damage that would not become apparent until the gas reserves had been exhausted the companies had long moved on. Allowing CSG companies to take the lead on groundwater monitoring and not placing such responsibilities into the hands of a truly independent authority is akin to leaving the fox in charge in the henhouse.
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