Health and legal experts have warned of the risks a planned gas processing facility poses during a lively town hall meeting in the heart of one of Queensland’s most productive foodbowls.
About 80 Darling Downs locals attended the town hall meeting last night. Photos are available here.
Arrow Energy, a coal seam gas export-focused joint venture between Shell and PetroChina, plans to build a massive new gas compressor station a short distance from the rural town of Cecil Plains on Queensland’s Darling Downs.
The “Lynwood” gas plant’s development footprint is 15 footy fields in size. It would have its own gas fired power plant and a large gas burning flare, which would release toxic air pollutants like nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and formaldehyde.
However, there are no air quality monitoring stations able to monitor the community’s potential exposure to these toxic air pollutants, with the closest at Miles, more than 100kms away, decommissioned two years ago.
The project represents the creep of the coal seam gas industry onto some of Queensland’s best cropping country on the Condamine floodplain. Last year, in the lead up to the QLD election, Member for Condamine Pat Weir promised to protect local groundwater from CSG drilling. However, the LNP Government is yet to act on this commitment.
Professor Melissa Haswell, from Queensland University of Technology’s School of Public Health, who spoke at the town hall meeting, said, “There are more than 2000 international peer reviewed publications on the risks to health, wellbeing, water, and climate at every step of the unconventional gas gas industry. Most provide evidence of significant risk to communities.
“Health harms range from birth defects, childhood cancers, to hospitalisations for heart and respiratory disease and shorter life expectancy among older people.
“Cecil Plains is a community of precious families and home to some of our state’s most productive agricultural lands wholly dependent on safe and sufficient groundwater. CSG mining and infrastructure do not belong in Cecil Plains.”
Cecil Plains farmer Liza Balmain, from advocacy group Save our Darling Downs, said, “We are deeply concerned about the toxic air pollution from the gas plant which could have serious long-term health impacts on nearby locals. To have no air quality monitoring occurring in Queensland’s gasfields, despite the gas industry’s continual expansion, is incredulous.”
“Our community feels left in the dark about these plans. We deserve to understand the impacts of such a huge gas facility, which is why we’ve hosted this event to talk through the threats this facility poses.
“This facility represents a major expansion of the coal seam gas industry across the Darling Downs, including across its world-renowned black soil cropping lands. An industry such as this, which inherently threatens our precious groundwater, is not compatible with the sustainable production of food and fibre in Cecil Plains and the wider Darling Downs.”
Lock the Gate Alliance Queensland Coordinator Maggie Mckeown said, “Big gas exporting companies like Arrow Energy are harming Australia’s best farmland, the health of our communities, our water, and our climate, while giving next to nothing back.
“Ordinary Australians are worse off thanks to the gas export industry.
“The health of the Cecil Plains community must not be collateral damage in gas exporters’ rush to flog off fossil gas to the highest overseas bidder.”
Public consultation on the Lynwood processing plant ends August 1.
ENDS
Background:
Arrow quietly uploaded plans for the 120 terrajoule gas processing plant earlier this year, and initially sought to avoid public scrutiny by lodging the project as a minor amendment. However, the Queensland Environment Department disagreed and determined the gas plant constituted a major amendment.
Locals living on the same road the facility would be constructed on say they received no new information from Arrow Energy, and earlier information understated the scale of project, with the company likening it to “a small pump”.
The “Lynwood” gas plant at a glance, according to Arrow Energy documents:
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Greenhouse pollution: 1.25 million tonnes (70,000 tonnes each year, including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide). See table 4.12
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Lifespan: 2030-2047.
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Design: Four compressor units, a gas-fired power station, multi point ground flare across 18 hectares.
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Capacity: 120TJ/day, larger than their existing two compressor facilities combined (Daandine 70TJ & Tipton 36TJ).
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To be operated remotely from Brisbane.