30th Jan 2014 Unpublished

Many environmental groups, along with community groups are appealing the EPA Buru Mitsubishi decision and the Australian Conservation Foundation are supporting this call.

Given the huge potential for damage to the Kimberley environment, this should obviously be given a full and transparent environmental assessment. ACF believe that the EPA is the only agency in WA who has the capacity to do rigorous, unbiased, independent environmental assessments. As Federal environmental powers are handed to the States it’s then inconceivable that the State’s environmental watch dog deputises the Department of Mines and Petroleum, a conflicted organisation whose remit is precisely to advance gas fracking in WA, to carry out monitoring and regulating Buru’s environmental impacts on the Kimberley.

I was one of several people who attended Buru’s less than convincing public forum. I heard a lot of concern from the public about the possible environmental effects of fracking in Broome’s supply of drinking water as well as the pristine Kimberley its groundwater and its National Heritage listed rivers and Roebuck bay. For Buru Energy community affairs general manager Jon Ford to say “People were particularly interested in hearing how we will protect water resources and how the well integrity will be maintained” is ambiguous at best.

Buru’s public presentation had many pretty pictures of big bores reinforced with layers of steel and concrete but as any engineer knows; steel rusts and concrete cracks and the two together aren’t necessarily a good mix.
Even in Buru’s world’s best practice they can’t eliminate human error in bore construction or closure.

Mr Ford was also quite misleading when he was quoted “France wants to protect its nuclear energy industry” as a reason to ban fracking. Rather France is heading for a low-carbon future and is considering a tax on carbon emissions and a nuclear tax. The revenue is to go to renewables and energy efficiency standards. President Francois Hollande has said France won’t allow exploration of shale gas even as the country seeks to reduce its reliance on nuclear.

A Duke University study refutes Mr Fords claim “There have been no instances of franking causing water contamination “when it recently showed that groundwater methane pollution in sample shale gas fields is around 600% above baseline, while a study by one of the world’s foremost authorities on fracking – Cornell University Professor of Engineering Anthony Ingraffea – has showed that well failure rates in Pennsylvania are around 6-7% within the first year of operation, creating pathways for hydrocarbon pollution of groundwater. Such well failures increase over time as steel rusts and cement corrodes; the risk of water pollution increases over time.

Due to the huge public concern, the open questions and because of, environmentally, what’s at stake; It’s not too much to ask for our State Environmental agency to assess this proposal is it? And if all is as squeaky clean as Buru and Mitsubishi would have us believe then they wouldn’t stand in its way.