Lock the Gate Alliance has welcomed the announcement by the Qld Government today that underground coal gasification will be banned.
Underground coal gasification has previously caused water contamination at Kingaroy, and at Hopeland near Chinchilla it has led to the contamination of 30,000 hectares of land with dangerous gases, after catastrophic failure of the underground gasifiers.
Drew Hutton from Lock the Gate Alliance said ‘We’d like to congratulate the Qld Government, and the Premier Anastacia Palaszczuk, on taking this important step.
“This technology has failed repeatedly in Qld and it is simply too dangerous to accept.
“We’ve been working for more than six years to have important farmland, water resources and local communities protected from the risks that this industry poses.
“Underground coal gasification has failed catastrophically in two of its three trial projects in Queensland over the last decade. However, there was yet another project currently proposed by Carbon Energy at Dalby.
“No-one would jump in a car that fails 70% of the time, so why should landholders have to put up with a technology that is so demonstrably unsafe?.
“We believe this should be a bipartisan issue and would like see support from all political parties, including the LNP, to end this dangerous polluting industry.
“It is positive that no other community will ever have to go through what has happened to people at Hopeland, but we still need urgent action to address the damage that has occurred there.
“We want to see Linc Energy and their former Chair Peter Bond held accountable for the far-reaching impacts of underground coal gasification on farmland at Hopeland.
“We are calling on the Qld Government to act urgently so that they do not escape their responsibilities by going into liquidation.
“We want to see the Qld Governments proposed Chain of Responsibility Bill passed through Parliament this week, and applied to ensure that Peter Bond and others are required to cover the clean-up of the site and to pay any penalties that may arise from the court prosecution, as well as covering any remedies sought by affected landholders” he said.