Skip navigation

Salt in the wound: An assessment of the scale of the NSW Government’s planned expansion of Santos’ Narrabri coal seam gas field

New analysis has revealed a staggering one-third of the land covered by “zombie” petroleum licences being brought back from the dead by the NSW Berejiklian Government is home to the best farming soils in the state.

About 400,000 hectares of what’s known as biophysical strategic agricultural land (BSAL) is contained within the roughly 1.1 million ha of coal seam gas tenements across the Upper Hunter, Liverpool Plains, and Namoi Valley, that the NSW Government plans to reinstate.

Read and download the full report here

The analysis also shows that if the scale of coal seam gas development and impacts approved for the Narrabri gas project were replicated across this larger area, more than 10,000 additional coal seam gas wells could be drilled, removing as much as 449 billion litres of groundwater. 

Such a gargantuan expansion of the industry could be expected to create an additional 10 million tonnes of solid salt waste, and emit roughly 1.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse pollution over 25 years - equivalent to three times Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. 

Read and download the full report here

Image credit: North West Protection Advocacy 

 

Continue Reading

Read More

Community Sacrifice for Coal and Gas

January 30, 2025

Social Impact Assessment in New South Wales: Gaps and Recommendations | 2024The Social Impacts Alliance have prepared this report to inform communities, social impact assessment practitioners, and policy and decision-makers about the shortcomings in the NSW planning system and the failures in protecting communities...

Read more

Turning Down the Gas

November 20, 2024

Dramatically reducing Australia’s use of gas would secure the future of industrial manufacturing and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of workers, according to a bold new report that looks to reset the national debate about gas. Commissioned by the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union...

Read more