coal infrastructure

The coal seam gas industry is fond of positioning itself as a solution to climate change. They have managed to convince the Queensland Government of this - Queensland has set a target of 18% of domestic energy to be provided by gas by 2020.

But much like the earlier claims of the fossil fuel industry that so-called 'clean coal' would solve the climate crisis, the arguments about the climate change virtues of coal-seam gas do not stand up to scrutiny. In fact, preliminary research suggests that energy from coal seam gas may be slightly more environmentally damaging than burning coal.

In the Parliament last week, Independent member for Nanango Dorothy Pratt spoke passionately about the impact that the Queensland Government's experiments with underground coal gasification and coal seam gas is having on her constituents. We were so moved by this speech, we thought we'd share it with you.

Minister Stephen Robinson and Department of Environment and Resource Management Director-General John Bradley will finally face the community of Kingaroy on Wednesday August 25th, to address a public meeting of locals citizens concerned about Cougars Energy’s Underground Coal Gasification project. He will be accompanied by three members of an industry expert panel appointed to assess the impact of the project, and in particular the contamination event that became public in mid-July.

The small town of Wandoan is set to become the second Queensland town to be swallowed up or, at best, made unlivable by an open cut coal mine.

A critically important precedent has been set in the US state of New York, with an overwhelming majority of Senators calling for a moratorium on coal seam gas extraction until the environmental impacts can be determined.

The onus is now on the Queensland Government to heed this emerging global consensus. 

The Bligh Government must impose an identical moratorium on the controversial process of fracking in the extraction of coal seam gas in Queensland. The process used and the risks of this technology in Queensland and the US are identical. As we have consistently maintained, there is no justification for rushing ahead with gas extraction in Queensland before the science is known and the impacts understood.

Yesterday's People's Assembly at Queensland's Parliament House brought together hundreds of farming families and environmentalists to Queensland Parliament - united in their opposition to coal and gas mining on prime agricultural lands. 

The peaceful protest combined the strength and the passion of the farming and environmental movements of Queensland to put pressure on the State Government to protect farming land and nature refuges from the encroachment of all forms of coal mining and the potential poisoning of waterways.

The State Government must come clean about its cover-ups of pollution incidents involving both coal seam gas and underground coal gasification projects in the Surat Basin. In the latest incident in Kogan Creek, landholders had alerted the Bligh Government to mercury levels 5 times the acceptable limit in January, but departmental officers did not respond until July. That is plainly unacceptable.

Six Degrees spokesperson on coal seam gas Drew Hutton said these incidents had followed one after another so that a pattern of cover-up and complicity was clear.

The Great Artesian Basin Co-ordinating Committee, a group set up to advise state and federal governments on the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) says it is worried coal seam gas and coal mining and exploration activities could damage the resource unless guidelines are in place to protect it.

The basin underlies more than 20 per cent of Australia, including most of Queensland, and is the only reliable source of water for much of the inland.

On the 19th July, Six Degrees and Friends of the Earth spokesperson Drew Hutton was interviewed by Steve Austin from 612 ABC Radio. The interview outlines the full extent of the risk to some of Australia's best farming land from the range of coal extractive industries.

Listen to the interview here. 

Contamination of groundwater at Kingaroy by the cancer-causing chemicals benzene and toluene from the Cougar Energy Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) plant has highlighted the health risks of a proposed coal-to-fuel project at Felton, 30km southwest of Toowoomba.