The Lock the Gate Alliance is glad to see the NSW Government moving forward with CSG exclusion zones towns and critical industry clusters, but says the devil is in the detail which hasn't yet been released.

The Alliance has also called on the Premier to deliver on his pre-election promises by allowing the gateway panel to reject projects on prime agricultural land and by extending the exclusion zone to family homes on rural properties.

The NSW Mine Safety Investigation Unit has released a report on a 'high risk incident' at a Metgasco gas well near Casino in July this year, where more than 200m of steel drill pipes shot out of the well at high pressure.  The unconventional tight gas well had been fracked in 2010.

The Lock the Gate Alliance has welcomed the Federal Environment Minister’s decision to apply the new Commonwealth law protecting water resources from coal mining and coal seam gas to nearly fifty resource projects seeking Government approval, but warns the real test is yet to come.

The new ‘water trigger’ in the Federal Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act came into force in late June, but a question mark has remained, till now, over 50 coal and gas projects that were already in the assessment process.

A poll released by Lock the Gate Alliance today shows that 84% of respondents in NSW support a ban on coal and coal seam gas (CSG) mining on productive agricultural lands and 74% support a ban on fracking. 

The poll debunks comments made by Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane this week that sought to demonise farmers and people opposed to CSG mining as 'anarchists' and 'people who have no respect for the rule of law'.

The Northern Inland Council for the Environment lodged an application for an interlocutory injunction in the Federal Court of Australia late yesterday, in a bid to prevent Whitehaven Coal from clearing important areas for the construction of the Maules Ck coal mine near Narrabri.

Last week the judicial review case brought by the Council against the Federal Government and Whitehaven Coal in relation to the Maules Ck mine was heard by the Federal Court, but it is not known when a decision will be delivered.

The interlocutory injunction application will be heard on Wednesday morning in the Federal Court in Sydney.  It is seeking orders from the Court to prevent construction of the mine destroying nationally significant forests until a decision has been made on the full case.