Lock the Gate Alliance president, Drew Hutton, will be visiting communities in the Hunter region during this week and will be participating in a media conference with local community representatives to discuss directions for dealing with unwanted coal and coal seam gas projects.

The media conference will take place at 9.45 am at Glennies Creek Hall on Tuesday 6 September.

Mr Hutton said this area would be one of the first battlegrounds for an 'Enough is enough' campaign for the whole Hunter region.

"The Hunter is rightly famous around Australia and the world for its beauty and its iconic cultural and economic activities," Mr Hutton said.

The vice-president of one of Australia's biggest coal seam gas companies has reportedly told a resident of a rural residential estate being targeted for gas wells by his company that his community would be 'collateral damage.'

Brett Smith, senior vice-president in the BG Group that owns QGC, was meeting Michael Bretherick, a resident of the Tara residential estate and a member of the Western Downs Alliance, along with others from the company and from the state government.

Michael Bretherick suggested that, if the company were to take the initiative by ceasing their operations within the Tara estates, begin working on addressing earlier impacts upon residents and the local environment, with emphasis on air quality, noise monitoring, soil and water testing, this would avoid confrontation and defuse an already stressful situation.

The NSW state government has reached new depths in its lack of responsibility in planning for coal seam gas development with state government developer, Landcom, neglecting to inform prospective buyers in south-west Sydney that AGL plans to drill coal seam gas wells in the area.

While AGL is now saying they will drill no closer than 200 metres from a home, their original planned minimum buffer, apparently with state government approval, was 20 metres.

Lock the Gate Alliance president, Drew Hutton, said even city residents who couldn't care less about country residents having to put up with this sort of intrusion into their lives would now have to sit up and take notice.

Today's announcement by Mines Minister, Stirling Hinchliffe, that his department would provide free legal aid to central Queensland farmers faced by mining companies wanting to take over their land is just one more example of this government's one-sided approach to dealing with the destructive impacts of mining.

Lock the Gate Alliance president, Drew Hutton, said central Queensland farmers had taken the most sensible step in the face of threats by mining companies to take over their land – they had locked the gate.

The announcement that carcinogenic chemicals have been found in five monitoring bores at Arrow Energy's Tipton West and Daandine gas fields near Dalby is another example of alarm bells going off about the coal seam gas industry.

Significant levels of benzene, toluene and xylene were discovered at levels considerably higher than those considered by regulatory authorities as acceptable.

For example, benzene was found at 15 and 16 parts per billion (ppb) and toluene at 8 ppb. These are well beyond the usual limits of 1 ppb. The State Government shut down Cougar Energy's underground coal gasification plant at Kingaroy when outside monitoring bores registered 2 ppb.