More than 20 farming families whose properties cover more than 20,000 hectares of priority agricultural land across the Darling Downs have signed a “gasfield free” declaration against Shell and PetroChina’s Arrow Energy Surat Gas Project.
Arrow Energy is expected to make a final investment decision on whether to proceed with the next phase of its Surat Gas Project, which includes the Cecil Plains area, this year.
The company’s next phase of coal seam gas drilling would directly impact all farmers who have signed the declaration.
Gasfield free declarations have been used throughout Australia to fight and defeat gas companies that were attempting to invade communities.
Cecil Plains farmer Liza Balmain said, “This gasfield free declaration is a powerful message to Arrow Energy and the Queensland Government that our community’s opposition to coal seam gas and its long-term harmful impacts is unwavering. We have been strongly opposed since Arrow Energy came into our area 15 years ago and our position has only grown stronger with the more knowledge we have gained. The impacts to our land and groundwater are insurmountable. We will not be accepting coal seam gas mining on or under our properties.
“Arrow Energy and its shareholders need to abandon the Surat Gas Project expansion plans over the Condamine Floodplain. Industry and government peddle a fantasy that coexistence is possible on intensively farmed cropping land. Reality shows this is not the case. We have seen the impacts further north and west and know that this industry is totally incompatible with food and fibre production. The Condamine Alluvium, which sustains this food bowl and our regional towns, is a priceless water resource that is too precious to risk.
“Farmers threatened by the next phase of the Surat Gas Project are united in their opposition to coal seam gas drilling on their land. Our gates remain locked.
“There is no way a loss-making coal seam gas company like Arrow, with its shoddy track record, should be allowed to threaten the groundwater that sustains QLD’s foodbowl on the Darling Downs.”
Springvale farmer Doug Browne said, “Queensland’s prime agricultural land and the groundwater that sustains it is too important to put at risk. We are locking our gates to Arrow energy.
“I have a high tech irrigation system and I don't waste water. Water is life. Water sustains everything. If you haven't got water you can't grow food. Water is the most important thing in my book. Arrow is buggering up the groundwater - it is taking the coal seam gas water out like a vacuum and my fear is we’re going to lose the Condamine Alluvium - that’s where we get our groundwater from. We don’t have town water here.
“I think about the next generation too, what's the next generation going to have?
“It’s time for politicians to support a ban on coal seam gas drilling on prime agricultural land, and a moratorium on new coal seam gas projects across the state.”
ENDS
Background:
Arrow Energy is expected to make a final investment decision on whether to proceed with the next stage of its Surat Gas Project, which includes the Cecil Plains area, this year. As part of that assessment the company may consider whether it can secure the necessary landholder consent for their projects.
While Queensland farmers are legally unable to refuse access to gas companies who wish to drill on their properties, the Queensland Government is technically obliged to stop coal seam gas projects harming priority agricultural and strategic cropping land.
However, in practice, the QLD Government has never refused a gas project’s application to drill on priority agricultural or strategic cropping land.
Farmers also have the right to challenge a gas company’s application to drill on or under prime agricultural land, with two such legal battles underway across the Darling Downs.
The Surat Gas Project’s environmental impact statement was first submitted to the QLD Government in 2011, however Arrow Energy only announced its final investment decision in Stage 1 of the project in 2019. At the time, then QLD Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk enthusiastically welcomed the decision in a joint media statement with Arrow Energy’s then chief executive.
If it proceeds to stages 2-5, Arrow will drill up to 7,500 gas wells between Millmerran in the south, and Wandoan in the north.
Arrow has recorded financial losses of more than $14 billion since the joint venture was formed more than a decade ago.
Arrow Energy abandoned its Scenic Rim coal seam gas tenements in response to local opposition, including from the mayor and council. Similarly, Blue Energy abandoned plans to frack the Wide Bay-Burnett district in response to unrelenting community opposition.
Last year, Toowoomba Regional Council voted to oppose new coal seam gas drilling in its local government area due to concerns about the impact the industry posed to groundwater and priority agricultural land. Cecil Plains is part of Toowoomba Regional Council.
In 2022, Arrow Energy was fined $1 million for illegally drilling deviated wells beneath farms without notifying the property owner.
The same year, an Arrow Energy pipeline exploded near Lake Broadwater Conservation Park, north west of Cecil Plains.
Also in 2022, the QLD Government acknowledged for the first time that coal seam gas drilling and extraction was causing farmland to sink.
According to the QLD Government, 16,499 coal seam gas wells had been drilled in QLD as of June 2021, with that figure to more than double if all planned projects proceed.