Farmers fighting the expansion of the coal seam gas industry have opened a volunteer-run community outreach centre in the main street of Dalby, three doors down from the office of the multinational joint venture trying to drill on their properties.
The farmers, who have reinvigorated the long-running group Downs Save Our Darling Downs, oppose Shell and PetroChina joint venture Arrow Energy’s plans to expand its Surat Gas Project onto priority agricultural land.
Arrow is considering its final investment decision for the next stage of the project, which would involve the drilling of hundreds of new coal seam gas wells in the Cecil Plains and Nangwee districts, taking it east of the Condamine River for the first time.
Nangwee farmer and Save Our Darling Downs spokesperson Liza Balmain said, “This community outreach centre will be a resource hub where people can access support for dealing with the threat of coal seam gas.
“It will also provide information about the importance of the agricultural sector in this area. The Darling Downs really is a world renowned food bowl and it is a travesty that the Queensland Government is sacrificing it and the water that sustains it to polluting coal seam gas multinationals.
“We grow cotton, sorghum, chickpeas, wheat, and other grains and legumes that feed and clothe Queensland and the world, all underpinned by the precious Condamine Alluvium, which is right now threatened by the gas industry’s voracious appetite for groundwater.
“Coal seam gas induced subsidence, caused by the extraction of vast quantities of gas and water from beneath the earth, is also causing fertile cropping country on the Darling Downs to sink.
“Coal seam gas and farming are totally incompatible in this part of the world. We must protect the future integrity of this rich agricultural region and its invaluable groundwater from destructive coal seam gas.”
Save Our Darling Downs spokesperson and Cecil Plains farmer Melinda Commens said, “What’s happening on the Darling Downs is a real nightmare for a lot of people, and we’re desperately trying to stop this industry before it expands any further onto the Condamine floodplains.
“We have seen the impacts further north and west and know that the coal seam gas industry is totally incompatible with growing food and fibre for clothing production. The Condamine Alluvium, which sustains this food bowl and our regional towns, is a priceless water resource that is too precious to risk.”
In March this year, dozens of farming families across the Darling Downs united to declare their properties, which now cover more than 30,000 hectares, “gasfield free”. Arrow Energy petroleum titles cover all these properties.
Gasfield free declarations have been used throughout Australia to thwart gas companies that were attempting to invade communities.
ENDS
Background:
Arrow Energy first submitted the environmental impact statement for its Surat Gas Project in 2011, however the company 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 and 3, Arrow is approved to drill up to 6500 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.
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. A year later the government acknowledged that CSG-induced subsidence is permanent and that resulting landform changes which impair drainage have the potential to result in a high reduction of food and fibre production.
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.