Posted by: Wade Freeman, February 3, 2014

The Environmental Protection Authority is missing in action, says ACF’s Kimberley project officer, Wade Freeman

In 2011 the West Kimberley was declared a National Heritage area by then Federal environment minister Tony Burke, who — accompanied by representatives of the local Aboriginal corporation the Kimberley Land Council, national environment groups and many local people — took part in a ceremony at One Arm Point on the northern tip of the West Kimberley.

Just two years on from that long overdue recognition of the internationally significant natural and cultural values of the Kimberley region, it is staggering to learn that the region is now under threat from a whole new upstream environmental predator on its door step — the process known as fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of drilling then injecting fluid into the ground at high pressure, to fracture gas-bearing rocks to release natural gas.

During this process, methane gas and toxic chemicals can leak from wells and contaminate nearby groundwater. In the US, there have been more than 1000 documented cases of water contamination near areas of gas drilling. The resulting pollution can result in sensory, respiratory and neurological damage when people ingest the contaminated water.

WA Environment Minister Albert Jacob is facing the decision of whether to allow open slather gas fracking in the Kimberley — before any proper independent environmental assessments have been done. Recently, the Environmental Protection Authority refused to assess a major fracking project for the Kimberley proposed by Buru Energy and Mitsubishi. The EPA gave no good reason for its failure to assess.

Rather, as has become familiar, the agency palmed off its responsibilities to the Department of Mines and Petroleum — an agency as conflicted as its name suggests. There seems to be little chance the department — which has a mandate to facilitate the development of the mining industry — will do the work required to ensure Kimberley groundwater is protected, or that the legitimate concerns of local people are taken into account. The EPA, on the other hand, was set up precisely to provide objective, transparent, independent advice to ministers on environmental issues.

The projects in the Kimberley are likely to be massive — Buru’s project is the first step in a series likely to involve many thousands of wells and networks of pipelines and roads cutting through the landscape from the Fitzroy River to Broome’s Roebuck Bay, well into the Pilbara and almost to the Northern Territory border. The government seems to want to lock WA into that future without any transparent debate or independent assessment of environmental and health risks. It is vitally important that Mr Jacob uses his powers to send Buru and Mitsubishi’s project back to the EPA for assessment.

The government seems to want to lock WA into that future without any transparent debate or independent assessment of environmental and health risks

The Yawuru people are the holders of native title over the area Buru and Mitsubishi are targeting. The Yawuru recently wrote an excellent submission to the Government that outlines clearly the reasons Mr Jacob shouldn’t allow this project to go ahead. The Yawuru people oppose fracking on Yawuru country until they can be satisfied that it doesn’t pose a risk.

Even if the WA government wants a fracking future for the Kimberley, it must recognise that the WA public has the right to expect credible processes to be followed. The WA and federal governments know the public is deeply concerned about fracking. The practice has many vigorous opponents — including senior ministers of Tony Abbott’s coalition Government — and with good reason.

Fracking has a deeply fraught history in the US. Study after study has linked fracking with water contamination and other, often irreversible environmental consequences. The US EPA has been sufficiently concerned by the potential for damage to groundwater quality that it is conducting an extensive study into potential threats to water quality from shale and “tight gas” mining.

Meanwhile, a study by Duke University in the US recently showed groundwater methane pollution in sample shale gas fields is about 600 per cent above baseline, while a study by one of the world’s foremost authorities on fracking — Cornell University Professor of Engineering Anthony Ingraffea — showed well failure rates in Pennsylvania were about 6-7 per cent within the first year of operation, creating pathways for hydrocarbon to pollute groundwater. As steel rusts and cement corrodes, the risk of water pollution increases. WA needs to slow things down until the EPA has done independent, credible, transparent research into the risks — at a landscape scale — that fracking poses to the environment and to human health.

Such studies need to happen as a matter of urgency before we blindly give the go-ahead to an environmentally degraded future for one of our most cherished and iconic regions, the Kimberley.

This piece was originally published in the West Australian newspaper