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.
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.
