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Update: A Critical Moment to Protect the Darling Downs

Farmers across the Darling Downs have been standing up for more than a decade to protect our land, water and livelihoods from coal seam gas.

Now we are at a critical moment.

The Queensland Government is pushing a new Bill that will decide the future of the Condamine Alluvium area —  one of Australia’s most important food-producing regions underpinned by a precious groundwater system.

This Bill removes protections for farmland and water, and makes it easier for gas companies to operate with less oversight.

What’s at risk

We are already seeing the impacts of coal seam gas in our region — including subsidence damaging high-value cropping country and increasing risks to the groundwater that critically sustains our farms and local towns.

But instead of strengthening protections, this Bill weakens them.

  • Farmers and communities weren’t properly consulted

  • Water quality protections won’t apply to most wells and are nearly impossible to enforce

  • The RIDA process — a key safeguard for landholder rights, farmland and water — is being removed

  • Damage is allowed to happen, leaving farmers to fight for compensation

Why this matters

This isn’t just about the Darling Downs.

It affects Queensland’s food and water security.

If protections are weakened here, it puts one of the state’s most productive agricultural regions at significant risk

Gasfield Free Counter:

HECTARES


28 farming families who own or lease 119 properties covering 27,928 hectares of land in the Darling Downs have declared their properties Gasfield Free!

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Will you support our farmers?

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The Surat Gas Project covers 8,600 square kilometres, from Wandoan to Dalby, and south to Millmerran. Arrow Energy, a joint venture between London-based company Shell, and PetroChina, wants to drill a total of 6,500 wells. 

We want to prevent the further expansion of the Surat Gas Project into new areas on prime agricultural land. We want to minimise the damage to the areas that are already impacted.

DECLARE NOW


The gas that is mined in our region doesn’t even support Australian businesses - it’s shipped overseas for the benefit of shareholders outside of our community. 

The constant expansion of coal-seam gas extraction in our region is already impacting our farms - noise, dust, vehicles entering our properties causing biosecurity concerns. Our bores are failing.

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Coal seam gas extraction poses a colossal threat to our groundwater.  Our region is blessed with good-quality groundwater and wouldn’t be what it is today without it.  This includes the prized Condamine Alluvium which not only supports irrigation, and stock and domestic use across thousands of properties, but is also the critical water supply for many regional towns including Dalby, Pittsworth and Millmerran, to name but a few.  The Alluvium is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of CSG mining as it sits directly on top, and is incised into the Walloon Coal Measures, from where copious amounts of water is extracted in order to release and extract the gas.  

This leads to the drawdown of the water table in much-relied upon aquifers like the Alluvium.  On top of this, gas mobilises and migrates into adjacent aquifers and into people’s water bores, rendering them gassy and unusable.  Over 700 water bores are already predicted to be impaired and this number will only continue to grow as the gas industry expands its tentacles across our regional aquifers.

Equally concerning is subsidence. Because of CSG activity, huge areas of cropping country are falling away, causing water to pool in our paddocks and making planting and harvesting nearly impossible. Repairing this costs tens of thousands of dollars and productivity takes years to come back. 

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Despite all this, the Queensland Government hasn’t stepped in to protect our property rights. If a gas company wants access to our land, we can “negotiate”, but we can’t say no. And that’s not a real negotiation. 

The deck has been stacked against us for too long. 

For all of these reasons, we are declaring our region Gasfield Free.  

In an ever challenging climate, where food and water security is paramount, coal seam gas mining on prime agricultural land is a social, environmental and economic disaster waiting to happen.

 

DECLARE NOW


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